"Information is incomplete": Sekler on claims that Omicron is 10 times weaker than Delta strain

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Virologist and microbiologist Dr. Milanko Sekler has told TV Prva that information that the Omicron strain is ten times weaker than the Delta variant is incomplete.

According to him, trials have been conducted in Hong Kong on what's known as organ culture, which means taking samples of the bronchioles and samples of the lungs and keeping those parts of the organ alive in laboratory conditions, and then injecting the virus into that culture of healthy organs to observe how it behaves and how it damages that part of the organ, microscopically.

"That work has not been officially published yet, but because of the seriousness of the situation with the Covid-19 pandemic, it still leaked to the media.

The obtained data shows that the Omicron strain multiplies 70 times more, i.e. faster in the trachea, the bronchioles, while in the lungs it multiplies 10 times slower than Delta," Dr. Sekler explained, reports Blic.

He stressed that this data explains the fantastic power of Omicron's transmissibility, because this strain spreads 70 times faster in the bronchi, into which we breathe the air. But, he notes, the function of the lungs is more important, i.e. the exchange of oxygen in the alveoli, and here Omicron multiplies less than Delta.

"There lies the explanation as to why the majority of people in South Africa who had Omicron did not need additional oxygent, unlike what was the case with Delta," said Sekler.

(Telegraf.rs)