Risk of new variants: scientists on the alert

Qhen the Omicron wave recedes, what to expect? Will we see the light at the end of this two-year epidemic tunnel? The uncertainties are such that in terms of predictions, there is something for everyone. The most optimistic options side with the most worrying.

Thus, while the Minister of Health estimated on January 3 in front of the deputies that we were “perhaps” undergoing “the last wave” of this pandemic, the WHO sang a completely different tune. For Catherine Smallwood, an emergency manager at the WHO, skyrocketing infection rates could have the opposite effect. “The more Omicron spreads, the more it is transmitted and the more it replicates, the more likely it is to generate a new variant,” she told the agency …