{"id":1062656,"date":"2021-11-28T18:15:45","date_gmt":"2021-11-28T23:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1062656"},"modified":"2021-11-28T18:15:53","modified_gmt":"2021-11-28T23:15:53","slug":"nih-director-collins-too-early-to-know-the-answers-on-omicron-variant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nih-director-collins-too-early-to-know-the-answers-on-omicron-variant\/","title":{"rendered":"NIH Director Collins: \u2018Too Early\u2019 To Know The Answers On Omicron Variant"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnih-director-collins-too-early-to-know-the-answers-on-omicron-variant%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1062656&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said that it is still too early to draw any conclusions about the severity of the new \u201cOmicron\u201d variant of the COVID-19 virus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is early enough that it\u2019s hard to be sure that we know the answers,\u201d Collins told Fox News\u2019 Trace Gallagher during an interview on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=385_5OOV8-M\">Fox News Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do know that this is a variant that has a lot of mutations \u2013 like 50 of them, and more than 30 of those in the spike protein, which is the part of the virus that attaches to your human cells if you get infected,\u201d Collins said. \u201cThat is a new record in terms of the number of mutations. It does make you worry, therefore, that it\u2019s a sufficiently different virus, that it might not respond as well to protection from the vaccines. But we don\u2019t know that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When asked by Gallagher about the severity of the novel variant, Collins stated bluntly, \u201cWe don\u2019t know about the severity. [We\u2019re] trying to collect that data as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the difference in spike proteins, Collins said that the new variant\u2019s spike proteins could possibly lead it to resist the antibodies of the current vaccines and those of previously infected people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe question is, if you\u2019ve raised antibodies against [COVID-19] from previously being infected or from being vaccinated, the question is, will those antibodies still stick to this version of the spike protein, or will they evade that protection? We need to find that out, to be honest, though that\u2019s gonna take two, three weeks in both laboratory and field studies to figure out the answer. And that\u2019s what all of us as scientists want to know,\u201d said Collins.<\/p>\n<p>When asked to confirm whether the new variant\u2019s symptoms are mild or more severe, Collins said it was \u201ctoo early\u201d to conclude one way or the other, noting that the early cases were young adults, who typically have mild cases anyway.<\/p>\n<p>He did say, however, that based on their history with the Delta variant, the current crop of vaccines and booster shots should provide some level of protection from the virus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s clear that in all the previous examples of variants, the vaccines have worked to provide protection and the boosters have provided especially strong protection against things like Delta. Given that history, we expect that most likely the current vaccines will be sufficient to provide protection. And especially the boosters will give that additional layer of protection because there\u2019s something about the booster that causes your immune system to really expand its capacity against all kinds of different spike proteins, even ones it hasn\u2019t seen before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Collins finished by urging Americans to get vaccinated in hopes of curbing the spread of the Omicron variant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlease, Americans, if you\u2019re one of those folks who are sort of waiting to see, this would be a great time to sign up get your booster. Or if you haven\u2019t been vaccinated already, get started. Omicron is one more reason to do this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said that it is still too early to draw any conclusions about the severity of the new \u201cOmicron\u201d variant of the COVID-19 virus.\u201cThis is early enough that it\u2019s hard to be sure that we know the answers,\u201d Collins told Fox News\u2019 Trace Gallagher during an interview on Fox News Sunday.\u201cWe do know that this is a variant that has a lot of mutations \u2013 like 50 of them, and more than 30 of those in the spike protein, which is the part of the virus that attaches to your human cells if you get infected,\u201d Collins said. \u201cThat is a new record in terms of the number of mutations. It does make you worry, therefore, that it\u2019s a sufficiently different virus, that it might not respond as well to protection from the vaccines. But we don\u2019t know that.\u201dWhen asked by Gallagher about the severity of the novel variant, Collins stated bluntly, \u201cWe don\u2019t know about the severity. [We\u2019re] trying to collect that data as quickly as possible.\u201dWhen asked about the difference in spike proteins, Collins said that the new variant\u2019s spike proteins could possibly lead it to resist the antibodies of the current vaccines and those of previously infected people.\u201cThe question is, if you\u2019ve raised antibodies against [COVID-19] from previously being infected or from being vaccinated, the question is, will those antibodies still stick to this version of the spike protein, or will they evade that protection? We need to find that out, to be honest, though that\u2019s gonna take two, three weeks in both laboratory and field studies to figure out the answer. And that\u2019s what all of us as scientists want to know,\u201d said Collins.When asked to confirm whether the new variant\u2019s symptoms are mild or more severe, Collins said it was \u201ctoo early\u201d to conclude one way or the other, noting that the early cases were young adults, who typically have mild cases anyway.He did say, however, that based on their history with the Delta variant, the current crop of vaccines and booster shots should provide some level of protection from the virus.\u201cIt\u2019s clear that in all the previous examples of variants, the vaccines have worked to provide protection and the boosters have provided especially strong protection against things like Delta. Given that history, we expect that most likely the current vaccines will be sufficient to provide protection. And especially the boosters will give that additional layer of protection because there\u2019s something about the booster that causes your immune system to really expand its capacity against all kinds of different spike proteins, even ones it hasn\u2019t seen before,\u201d he said.Collins finished by urging Americans to get vaccinated in hopes of curbing the spread of the Omicron variant.\u201cPlease, Americans, if you\u2019re one of those folks who are sort of waiting to see, this would be a great time to sign up get your booster. Or if you haven\u2019t been vaccinated already, get started. Omicron is one more reason to do this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1062656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}