The new Arturo variant (XBB.1.16) is “yet another in the Omicron galaxy: an argument for social or bar ‘scientists’. No Omicron variant has so far increased the pathogenicity or severity of Covid. It is not and will not not even Arturo. Enough talking about variants because there is a risk that people will lose faith in medicine. The pandemic is over thanks to the Omicron variant and vaccines”. So at Adnkronos Salute Matthew Bassettidirector of Infectious Diseases of the San Martino hospital in Genoa, comments on a clear recovery in Covid infections in Southeast Asia in which the boom in India stands out where the XBB.1.16 variant is raging, already renamed ‘Arcturus’ after the red giant that is the brightest star in the constellation Bootes.
“We will continue to have new variants especially from countries like India where, despite having vaccinated a lot, they have organization and surveillance problems – says Bassetti – This is to say that Arturo will not be the last, it is not and will not be a problem and I think it’s best to talk about it as little as possible.”
Also on XBB.1.16 or ‘Arturo’, the new variant of Sars-CoV-2 which has attracted the attention of the experts most attentive to the recombinant activity of Omicron, “I reiterate what I think is quite logical to say every time overlooks a new variant” on the Covid scene: “Before judging how” the new mutant can act, “we must wait, observe and study”. It is the invitation of the microbiologist Maria Rita Gismondo who nevertheless adds: “We are in a phase in which the virus has laid down its weapons. And therefore, presumably, like the latest ones, the new variants will also be less and less invasive from the point of view of pathology”, he tells Adnkronos Salute l expert, director of the laboratory of clinical microbiology, virology and diagnostics of bio-emergencies at the Sacco hospital in Milan.
“Let’s not forget – Gismondo underlines – that the world population, between anti-Covid vaccinations and natural infections, can now count on a very very large amount of antibodies, certainly suitable for responding and countering new variants of the virus”. In any case “we observe, we study and then we deduce”.
For Fabrizio Pregliascovirologist at the State University of Milan, the appearance of the ‘Arturo’ variant is “yet another confirmation of the remarkable instability of the virus: a characteristic in some ways perfidious, which allowed Covid to do what it did and which, I fear, he will still continue to do”, precisely because of this ability to develop “new variants capable of dodging immunity (natural or hybrid, from infections plus vaccine) and of keeping viral circulation high”.
The pandemic coronavirus therefore circulates and will continue to do so, the expert reiterates to Adnkronos Salute, “even if – he specifies – from the point of view of public health, the dimension will no longer be that of the initial emergency, but of coexistence with the virus “. A pathogen which, Pregliasco repeats, “will produce undulations with a tendency to decrease like those of the waves caused by a stone in a pond”. The fact that “a large circulation of the virus continues in some parts of the world”, which will affect the various areas of the planet “patchy over time”, according to the doctor confirms “the need for constant and continuous virological monitoring”. An attention that, “also considering the involvement of mammals of various species, must be surveillance from a One health perspective – Pregliasco points out – and must concern Covid-19, but also other infections that worry us such as avian flu” .
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