Early tests show Omicron to be unhindered by majority antibody treatments
Amid an explosive surge of Covid19 cases around the world majorly caused by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, studies show that antibody treatments that were effective against the previous coronavirus strains may not be effective against the new variant.
Dr. Tyler Dougherty with South College School of Pharmacy said it’s a big loss in the fight against the virus. “If therapeutics are not as effective against this, this is very concerning for the population because you know this is what we’ve relied on for about the past year,” he said.
WHO senior emergencies officer Catherine Smallwood said that, “the more Omicron spreads, the more it transmits and the more it replicates, the more likely it is to throw out a new variant. Now, Omicron is lethal, it can cause death … maybe a little bit less than Delta, but who’s to say what the next variant might throw out.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest estimates, omicron cases make up 58.6 percent of cases across the U.S. and 78 percent of the cases in the Southeast, including Florida.
