already seen said stuart turville a virologist at the university of new south wales kirby institute who has conducted research showing that existing antibodies in some people bind even to emerging variants our antibodies are mature enough to deal with themthe other possibility is that something else entirely develops much like the way the original omicron emerged in southern africa in late 2021 that could pose a novel threat for the world omicron came out of nowhere turville said it made an evolutionary change in a way thats different if thats the path and it spreads more easily there might be another parachuting event where it takes a trajectory we dont expectlagging immunitythe fact that china doesnt have a lot of previous exposure to the virus could work in its favor when it comes to the risk of new variants in most of the world the virus has been under severe pressure forced to mutate like a contortionist to get around existing antibodies turville said that may not be necessary in china its a different situation said alex sigal a virologist at the africa health research institute in durban its going through a population that doesnt have a lot of immunity just because there are more infections doesnt mean well have nastier infectionson the other hand it may give other new variants a chance to take off because there isnt such a bar of immunity sigal said that could be problematic if something worse emerges that is turvilles primary concern maybe it will go down a different route because its not under pressure and there is more room to move he said it could be a seismic shift something thats completely different it may be a low probability but its a probability and we have to be ready for that at the moment its crystal ball gazingomicron doesnt penetrate as deeply in the lower respiratory tract or do as much harm as some of the earlier strains its superpowers include its contagiousness and ability to evade existing immunity a combination that slammed the door on other variants including those that could have been more virulent low risknot everyone is concerned stephen goldstein an evolutionary virologist at the university of utah said the differences in the immunity landscape between china and the rest of the world makes it unlikely that the emerging omicron subvariants will have advantages over what is already circulating with respect to new dangerous variants emerging from china im not particularly concerned right now he said i dont think the situation in china significantly affects the situation everywhere else he said could something out of the blue emerge and cause problems maybe but we cant predict it and it isnt what i expect he said while covid science has become highly politicized in china officials there also say the danger is remote even as omicron continues to mutateto catch a killeryet the global pullback from sequencing covid could mean a new possibly dangerous variant evades detection