Studies suggest that vaccinated people develop symptoms earlier with Omicron as early as day 2. This would allow their isolation more quickly.
More transmissible, less dangerous with slightly different symptoms … A month after having been at the origin of the explosion of cases of contamination in South Africa, we know more and more about the Omicron variant.
And what a recent study, taken up by Catalan television, indicates now differentiates between infection with the Omicron variant in vaccinated and unvaccinated.
The incubation period would therefore be very different depending on the patient’s vaccination status. Thus, symptoms would appear much sooner with Omicron in vaccinated people, around just two days after infection. Infected on the same day, an unvaccinated person would not show symptoms until several days later (7 days after infection, even though they had been contagious for two days).
According to this study, it is the immune system of the vaccinated which would recognize the virus much more quickly and which would thus activate to fight it. And it is precisely when this immune system is activated that the symptoms appear. Symptoms would appear two days before the viral load is at its peak, where the subject is most contagious. Another beneficial effect of the more rapid appearance of antibodies, a more effective fight against the virus, which could also explain that the vaccinated have less severe forms of the disease.
In the unvaccinated, not only would symptoms appear later, the virus would stay in the body longer and the subject would be contagious for more days.
What symptoms?
Similar to those of a common cold, the symptoms of the Omicron variant are a runny nose, sore throat and headache, fatigue and sneezing. If you put all of this together, you are likely to get infected with the Omicron variant.
Would PCR tests still be useful?
There remains the case of tests. This is where the shoe pinches, since none of them can detect the presence of the virus before the 5th day after infection. PCR tests thus detect the presence of the virus on the 5th day after infection, while antigenic tests do so later when the viral load is highest. This is why the PCR test can be positive before (and even after) the subject is contagious.
With the onset of symptoms more quickly, the subject could be infected but negative on the tests. A negative PCR test would ultimately only have reduced validity. The antigen test or even the self-test (which is an antigen test) would then have more relevance. As a reminder, it is no less reliable, it just doesn’t say the same thing and remains the best way to indicate if the subject is contagious. And during these holidays and family gatherings, testing yourself very regularly would allow you to be sure of not transmitting the virus.
It therefore remains to make these tests more accessible to the entire population, as Olivier Véran, Minister of Solidarity and Health, seemed to have committed to it on December 16, before going back. The Sanitary Defense Council on Monday afternoon could (finally) make it possible to correct the situation …
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