Faster Spread of Omicron

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – Faster spread of Omicron is not due to higher viral load

Concept –

Omicron variant became the dominant variant infecting both vaccinated and the unvaccinated persons in many countries just one month after the World Health Organization designated it a variant of concern on November 26, 2021.
Two months since, Omicron has become the dominant variant in every country that is witnessing a new wave.
In short, Omicron has replaced the Delta variant, which was considered highly transmissive in almost every country across the world.
One of the defining features of a new variant is the higher transmissibility than the existing variant. If the Delta variant was found to be highly transmissible when compared with the Alpha variant, the Omicron variant has been found to be extremely transmissive when compared with the Delta variant.
Earlier studies suggested, Delta variant require a relatively longer period of exposure before a person gets infected, the Omicron variant has been found to spread within a few minutes of exposure.

What do the recent studies show?

Viral load is nearly the same with both variants — Delta and Omicron.
With the Omicron variant possessing many mutations that allows it to escape the immune system better even in previously infected or fully vaccinated people, the extremely high rate at which the Omicron variant is spreading might be due to inherent immune escape capabilities rather than the high viral load as it was previously thought.