If you have been keeping up with the news about COVID-19, or well, being flooded with it on every newsfeed and social platform, you should have a rough understanding of the Omicron variant by now.
- The symptoms it causes are milder compared to the Delta variant,
- Compared to the Delta variant, it possesses a significant higher transmissibility rate;
- Due to its enhanced transmissibility, it has quickly overtaken the majority of the COVID-19 cases.
Towards these three commonly known facts, the first one has been solved.
According to many studies conducted on animal and human tissues, Omicron has proven to do less harm to the lungs, and its damages are limited to the upper respiratory system, somewhat akin to an influenza.
But one of the questions that have been bugging scientists and researchers alike, concerning Omicron’s many different mutations compared to its sibling variants is, why is the Omicron variant so highly infectious?
Well, the researchers and scientist might have arrived at a conclusion.
Omicron Variant has Higher Stability in External Environments
Apparently, studies conducted by Japanese researchers have shown that the highly infectious Omicron variant can survive up to eight days on plastic and 21 hours on skin.
This is a much longer period of time compared to the Delta variant, or the original strain.
Take this research with a grain of salt though; the differences in the viral environmental stability between the original Sars-CoV-2 and the other sibling variants have yet to be cross-referenced or peer-reviewed.
Regardless, the studies show that the Alpha, Beta, Delta and Omicron variants tend to survive twice longer than the original Wuhan strain, and are capable of maintaining its infectivity for more than 16 hours on varying surfaces.
In terms of how long the Variants of Concern (VOCs) can last on skin models made from cadavers, the results are:
- Omicron – 21.1 hours
- Alpha – 19.6 hours
- Beta – 19.1 hours
- Delta – 16.8 hours
- Gamma – 11 hours
- Original strain – 8.6 hours.
One of the researchers from the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in Japan surmised that the Omicron variant has the greatest environmental stability among the other VOCs.
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Moreover, the same studies stated that the survivability of different COVID-19 strains on plastic (polystyrene) surface are as follows:
- Omicron – 193.5 hours
- Beta – 156.6 hours
- Delta – 114 hours
- Gamma – 59.3 hours
- Original strain – 56 hours.
The researchers theorise that the higher environmental stability of these VOCs increases the risk of contact transmission and contributes to the spread of the VOCs.
Additionally, it has also exhibited that that the successive sibling variants possess a slight increase to ethanol resistance, but all VOCs were completely inactivated after being exposed to alcohol-based skin sanitisers after 15 seconds.
The Researchers’ Recommendations
Hence, the researchers highly recommend hand hygiene practices and disinfectants and/or sanitisers with appropriate alcohol concentrations.
Therefore, make sure to always keep your hands clean, as you should have always done, and ensure that you make full use of the free hand sanitisers that the government has been issuing for months on end at the vaccination centres.
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That being said, don’t accidentally eat or lick the hand sanitisers; washing your hands thoroughly with soap is always the best method.
Lastly, this study acknowledges its own limitations, such as the amount of virus remaining on the surface after contact and the risk of transmission.
Despite that, it is still reasonable to interpret the value of its survival time as a point of reference, to further understand why the Omicron variant has an enhanced transmissibility.
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Featured Image: Shutterstock / angellodeco
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