What is Omricon? South African scientists identified a new version of the coronavirus last week that they say is behind a recent spike in COVID-19 infections in Gauteng, the country’s most populous province. It’s unclear where the new variant actually arose, but it was first detected by scientists in South Africa.

South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla, said the variant was linked to an “exponential rise” of cases in the past week, although experts are still trying to determine if the new variant is actually responsible.

From just over 200 new confirmed cases per day in recent weeks, South Africa saw the number of new daily cases rocket to 2,465 on Thursday. Struggling to explain the sudden rise in cases, scientists studied virus samples from the outbreak and discovered the new variant. On Friday, the World Health Organization convened a group of experts to assess the data from South Africa.

Why are scientists worried?

It appears to have a high number of mutations — about 30 — in the coronavirus’ spike protein, which could affect how easily it spreads to people. Sharon Peacock, who has led genetic sequencing of COVID-19 in Britain at the University of Cambridge, said the data so far suggest the new variant has mutations “consistent with enhanced transmissibility,” but said that “the significance of many of the mutations is still not known.”

Lawrence Young, a virologist at the University of Warwick, described the variant as “the most heavily mutated version of the virus we have seen.” He said it was concerning that although the variant was only being detected in low levels in parts of South Africa, “it looks like it’s spreading rapidly.”

What do we know about the variant?

Scientists know that the new variant is genetically distinct from previous variants including the beta and delta variants, but do not know if these genetic changes make it any more transmissible or dangerous. South African scientists have noticed a surge of cases, but don’t know if the new variant is responsible.

It will take weeks to sort out whether vaccines are still effective against it. So far, there is no indication the variant causes more severe disease. South African experts said that, as with other variants, some infected people don’t have any symptoms.

Even though some of the genetic changes in the new variant appear worrying, it’s still unclear if the virus will pose a significant public health threat. Some previous variants, like the beta variant, initially concerned scientists but didn’t end up spreading very far.

Francois Balloux, director of the Genetics Institute at University College London said it was impossible to make any predictions about whether or not the virus was more dangerous or infectious based on its genetic make-up alone.

Are travel restrictions justified?

Maybe. Given the recent rapid rise in COVID-19 in South Africa, restricting travel from the region is “prudent,” said Neil Ferguson, an infectious diseases expert at Imperial College London.

Balloux said that if the new variant turns out to be more infectious than delta, the new restrictions will have little impact but that they could still buy countries time to boost vaccination rates and roll out other possible interventions.

Will vaccines work?

A number of pharmaceutical firms, including AstraZeneca, Moderna, Novavax and Pfizer, said they have plans in place to adapt their vaccines in light of the emergence of omicron. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said they expect to be able to tweak their vaccine in around 100 days.

Professor Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group which developed the AstraZeneca vaccine, expressed cautious optimism that existing vaccines could be effective at preventing serious disease from the omicron variant. He said most of the mutations appear to be in similar regions as those in other variants.

“That tells you that despite those mutations existing in other variants the vaccines have continued to prevent serious disease as we’ve moved through alpha, beta, gamma and delta,” he told BBC radio. “At least from a speculative point of view we have some optimism that the vaccine should still work against a new variant for serious disease, but really we need to wait several weeks to have that confirmed.”

He added that it is “extremely unlikely that a reboot of a pandemic in a vaccinated population like we saw last year is going to happen.”

Who’s to blame?

Some experts said the variant’s emergence illustrate how rich countries’ hoarding of vaccines threatens to prolong the pandemic. Fewer than 6% of people in Africa have been fully immunized against COVID-19, and millions of health workers and vulnerable populations have yet to receive a single dose. Those conditions can speed up spread of the virus, offering more opportunities for it to evolve into a dangerous variant.

Peter Openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London said, “One of the key factors to emergence of variants may well be low vaccination rates in parts of the world, and the WHO warning that none of us is safe until all of us are safe and should be heeded.”