“While omicron is clearly dominant now, I don’t have absolute certainty that omicron will 100% supplant delta, just as delta has supplanted other options that came before it.
Still, this strain is very different antigenically from both the “delta” and the previous variants.
This suggests that the immunity acquired after it, after some time after recovery, is unlikely to work effectively against the “delta” or similar strains, ”Alkhovsky said in an interview with Izvestia.
According to him, antibodies to the omicron strain show a high level of interaction with the "delta".
“Those antibodies to the “omicron” that arise do not interact very effectively with the “delta”.
However, with a high titer, antibodies against Delta more or less neutralize Omicron,” Alkhovsky noted.
Earlier, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, in an interview with Naila Asker-zade on the Russia 24 TV channel, said that the omicron coronavirus strain is twice as contagious as the flu virus.
Infectious disease doctor Nikolai Malyshev, in an interview with Nation News, recalled the importance of following preventive measures against the background of the detection of the omicron coronavirus strain.