“What awaits us this winter will not be pleasant” – Wel.nl

What is known so far about the omikron variant does not look good, professor of microbiology Emmanuel André (KU Leuven) tells Het Laatste Nieuws. “In January, omikron will be dominant here.”

Much is still unclear about the seriousness of the disease. “It is not certain whether the disease course will be milder and even then omikron will put a lot of pressure on our healthcare system due to the high infectiousness. What is certain is that our antibodies, our immunity after the vaccines and some of our medicines are less protective. It will not be pleasant what awaits us.”

Due to the many infections, South Africa has a high immunity against the corona virus. “Yet that virus can gain strength there, because it destroys the immunity of those who have been infected or who have been vaccinated. Tests in laboratories point to the same conclusion: omikron can escape our defenses much more easily.”

no miracles
The vaccines therefore also work less well, the expert thinks. “Because of the mutations, the antibodies we developed against the original virus and the variants that came out are not as effective.” The booster shot is the best we have against omikron, but ‘we shouldn’t expect miracles from it’.

It takes 100 days to adapt the vaccines, so they come too late. “The mutations in omikron were already present in the previous variants, so in principle it would have been possible to tailor a vaccine to that. Unfortunately, producers did not anticipate this.”

The professor doesn’t really have a solution. “How we should resolve this as a society is a difficult debate in which I, as a scientist, no longer want to get involved too much.”