What makes omicron spread so quickly? A new study offers a tantalizing clue : Goats and Soda : NPR

What makes omicron spread so quickly? A new study offers a tantalizing clue : Goats and Soda : NPR: The omicron variant multiplies about 70 times faster inside human respiratory tract tissue than the delta variant does, scientists at the University of Hong Kong report. The variant also reaches higher levels in the tissue, compared with delta, 48 hours after infection. "That's amazing," says immunologist Wilfredo Garcia-Beltran, who's a fellow at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital and wasn't involved in the study. This finding indicates that mutations in omicron have sped up the process of entering or replicating (or both) inside the tissue.