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How scary is omicron? Scientists are racing to find answers.

"LONGTERM - Why a vaccine may not be enough to end the pandemic"

In a few weeks, researchers expect to understand more about how well vaccines fare when they do battle with the new variant

VIDEO - How coronavirus variants like omicron form and spread
Coronavirus variants like omicron, delta and mu are an expected part of the virus's life cycle, but vaccines
can prevent more infectious variants from forming. (John Farrell, Hadley Green/The Washington Post)

By Carolyn Y. Johnson and Joel Achenbach Today at 1:01 p.m. EST

Microbiologist Pei-Yong Shi has studied all the variants .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11/29/covid-variants/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3 : alpha, beta, gamma, delta, “delta-plus,” lambda and mu. So he was ready for omicron .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11/29/how-bad-is-omicron-variant/?itid=lk_inline_manual_3 , the variant that incited global anxiety unlike any of the variants that came before.

FAQ: What to know about the omicron variant of the coronavirus
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11/26/faq-new-variant-omicron/?itid=lk_cta_ssinline

Like most scientists, he was shocked by the sheer number of mutations. He also knew exactly what to do next.

Shi runs a high-containment laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch, in Galveston, and collaborates closely with Pfizer .. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2102017 . Over Thanksgiving, his team began engineering a replica of the new variant to test against the antibodies generated by vaccines. But it doesn’t happen overnight: It will take about two weeks to build the omicron replica, another few days to confirm that it’s an accurate facsimile, and one more week to pit the virus against blood samples from vaccinated people.

Shi and colleagues around the world are in an urgent race to gauge the danger posed by omicron, which is rapidly seeding itself everywhere. As the tally of cases mounts, what happens inside labs over the next few weeks will help scientists determine the true potential of the virus, tipping off government officials and pharmaceutical companies about whether they need to revise their global vaccination campaign.

His message: Be patient. Wait for the data.

“I think there is a lot of overreaction, and we just have to sit tight,” Shi said. “There are no results yet, these are just the mutations. What does that mean? We have to see.”

[...]

There’s no doubt that omicron is different — and worrisome. It is riddled with mutations .. https://covariants.org/variants/21K.Omicron , some known to help the coronavirus .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13 .. dodge the body’s immune defenses. Others are newcomers, a complete mystery. Omicron has more than 30 genetic changes in the coronavirus spike where vaccines train their firepower.

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Instead of running time-consuming large-scale trials that depend on waiting for people to get ill, vaccine-makers expect to be able to show that their revamped vaccines are safe and effective by measuring immune responses in blood samples taken from study participants.

“We can turn the key relatively quickly and start to produce the updated vaccine,” Pfizer’s Jansen said.

This could also be the moment for second-generation vaccines .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/06/30/new-coronavirus-vaccines/?itid=lk_inline_manual_64 .. designed to be variant-proof by triggering a broader swath of immunity beyond antibodies.

“Our premise was that this would happen,” said Andrew Allen, chief executive of Gritstone Bio, a company whose vaccine formula is designed to rouse protection from T cells, the immune-system warriors that kill infected cells. “It is naive to think that the very first vaccine we made in the very first hot minutes of the pandemic would be the very best vaccine we could make.”

The idea behind Gritstone’s vaccine is that a broader set of immune defenses will free the world from constantly trying to play catch-up to the latest mutant strain of the virus.

But unless more of the world becomes vaccinated, the frenzy of worry is likely to continue to repeat.

“If we don’t develop systems to immunize the whole world in three months, instead of three years, we are not going to be successful against these kind of pandemic threats,” Graham said. “Because viruses adapt and they change, and unless we develop generalized global immunity more readily, we will always be faced with chasing our tail.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/12/04/omicron-variant-how-bad/