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 to Adnkronos Salute Matteo Bassetti, director of Infectious Diseases of the San Martino hospital in Genoa, comments on a clear recovery of Covid infections in Southeast Asia in which the boom in India stands out where the XBB.1.16 variant, already renamed ‘Arcturus’, is raging like the red giant which 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 however 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 the pathology”, the expert, director of the Laboratory of clinical microbiology, virology and diagnostics of bio-emergencies of the Sacco hospital in Milan told Adnkronos Salute.
“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”.
