Key questions about omicron answered
Smithsonian Magazine, January 20, 2022
Scientists don’t yet know why omicron spreads so fast, but they have ideas. The first, explained Vineet Menachery, a microbiologist and immunologist who studies coronaviruses at the University of Texas Medical Branch, is that some of the mutations in the spike protein allow the virus to escape existing immunity from vaccination or an infection. “It’s different enough that your antibodies don’t recognize it,” he said. That means the virus has a larger pool of people vulnerable to infection. How well do vaccines protect against omicron? “The data argues that if you’re vaccinated twice and boosted, that’s the highest level of protection that you can get,” Menachery said.