'The worst is yet to come': Study finds that Omicron is 10 times better than Delta at evading Covid vaccines

Although Omicron is touted as milder than its predecessors, it is widely known to be more contagious than previous Covid strains.

The extent to which this strain of viruses is more contagious has been revealed in a new graph. This also explains why some scientists believe the worst is yet to come.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia have charted the infectious rate of Omicron. Compared to the old Delta variant, Omicron is 10 times superior at evading the Covid vaccines and immunity.

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It may also help explain why the virus spread so rapidly around the world within a short period of time after its discovery.

South Africa and Botswana were the first countries to discover the super-mutant variant in late November. To date, it has spread to more than 120 countries, outpacing the dominant Delta variant in many countries.

The strain was studied in a highly secure clean room at the University of NSW's Kirby Institute in mid-December, at the start of Australia's Omicron wave, to determine how well the variant avoided vaccination.

Even in the bodies of the double-vaccinated, the Delta variant was 60 per cent better at evading antibodies than the original virus found in Wuhan. However, Omicron was 16.5 times better at evading immunity - ten times more than Delta.

Even as the Omicron wave subsides around the globe, scientists predict that new variants may continue to appear for years, particularly in winter.

The report goes on to say that a newly-discovered strain of Omicron called BA.2 has begun spreading across Europe and parts of Asia. There are indications that it could be even more infectious than its predecessor, Omicron BA.1.

Based on preliminary data, Danish health officials estimate that BA.2 may be 1.5 times more transmissible than BA.1, although it likely does not cause more severe illness.

A scenario in which no new variants of the disease are worse than those currently seen, coupled with global immunity remaining high, is the best scenario for ending the Covid pandemic, according to the UK's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.

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The worst case scenario, however, involves "unpredictable" new variants that could evade current immunity and could move too fast for updated vaccines to keep up with.

According to the report, there is a strong theory in the scientific community that Covid will become less dangerous with time.

Nevertheless, experts caution against assuming Covid will continue to fade in potency indefinitely.

"There's this assumption that something more transmissible becomes less virulent. I don't think that's the position we should take," Francois Balloux, a computational biologist at University College London, told scientific journal Nature.

(With inputs from agencies)