XPost: misc.news.internet.discuss   
   From: here@is.invalid   
      
   Preliminary laboratory data hint at what makes Omicron the most   
   superspreading variant yet   
   ...   
   ...   
   But what exactly gives Omicron its competitive advantage has so far   
   been unclear. Preliminary data, announced via press release Wednesday,   
   which provide a first look at how Omicron may behave inside the human   
   body, offers a clue to what might be behind its superspreading powers:   
   more virus in people+IBk-s airways, which could mean more virus in the   
   air.   
      
   The new research comes from a Hong Kong University team led by public   
   health professor Michael Chan Chi-wai and pathologist John Nicholls.   
   Previously, the researchers pioneered a method for growing human   
   tissues extracted from the lung and respiratory tract, which they used   
   to study how SARS-CoV-2 invaded cells and replicated compared to other   
   dangerous coronaviruses. Using this same system, they analyzed how   
   live, replicating particles of Omicron infected the tissues. They   
   found that over the first 24 hours, Omicron multiplied about 70 times   
   faster inside respiratory-tract tissue than the Delta variant. When   
   they ran the same experiments with the lung tissue, they found Omicron   
   was actually worse at infecting those cells than either Delta or the   
   original strain of the virus that originated in Wuhan.   
      
   That seemingly helps explain the variant's infectiousness, and also   
   why it may not be causing as severe sickness as previous variants of   
   the coronavirus -- as early data suggest.   
   ...   
   ...   
   ...   
   Breathing, he explained, is essentially the process of opening and   
   closing your airways. When they close, they become covered in a thin   
   liquid film, which acts kind of like the surface of a bubble. When you   
   breathe in and your airways open, the bubble bursts, creating tiny   
   particles known as aerosols, which you then breathe out and can hang   
   around in the air and be breathed in by other people.   
      
   Studies going back to the 1970s have shown that when people are   
   infected with a respiratory virus or bacteria, those microorganisms   
   tend to concentrate on the thinnest part of the bubble. The result is   
   that the tiniest particles, the ones that can stay aloft the longest   
   and travel the farthest distances, tend to have higher concentrations   
   of disease-causing pathogens than the larger particles you generate   
   when coughing or sneezing. Despite much scientific debate early on in   
   the pandemic, the evidence now suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is primarily   
   spread through infectious aerosols that people breathe in.   
      
      
   https://www.statnews.com/2021/12/17/preliminary-laboratory-data-   
   int-at-what-makes-omicron-the-most-superspreading-variant-yet/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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