Scientists are working around the clock to get a better understanding of the Omicron variant. Around the world countries have imposed travel bans to mitigate the spread.

South African scientists first announced that they had identified a new variant on November 25 2021.

Since then, cases of COVID have increased exponentially and South Africa has entered a fourth wave.

Scientists from the South African DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases) spoke to The Conversation Africa about their findings, which are set out in a pre-print paper.

Our key findings are around the risk of reinfection.

We found that the relative risk of reinfection was much higher (at least 3-fold) with the Omicron variant than it was with the Beta and Delta variants.

Our evidence suggests that the Omicron variant is associated with increased ability to evade immunity from prior infection.

This finding has important implications for public health planning, particularly in countries like South Africa with high rates of immunity from prior infection.

A study to measure previous infection found that just before the third wave (in May 2021) almost half of blood donors in South Africa had already been infected.

As a result of this high level of prior infection, combined with around 40 percent coverage of vaccination among adults, a smaller fourth wave was expected.

At this stage, we cannot say anything about the severity of cases with Omicron – either in primary or reinfections. We also do not have information on the vaccination status of reinfections.

Another big issue yet to be answered is whether protection against severe disease and death will be affected by reduced immunity to reinfection.

Early laboratory results looking at assays to measure T-cell-based immunity, on the other hand, predict that substantial protection against severe disease and death may remain.

Our findings were based on analysing surveillance data collected in South Africa between 04 March 2020 and 27 November 2021.

Based on the data used in this study, we cannot say anything about the implications for this.

We are hopeful that the vaccines will have similar efficacy against severe disease with Omicron than they have against other variants.

During the holiday season, it is particularly important to avoid large crowds, especially indoors.

Until we have a better understanding of this variant, it is best not to gather with groups of friends, but if you do, please do it outside.

(This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. FIT neither endorses, nor is responsible for them. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article here.)