Thought of the Day - November 29 2021 - Is the New Variant Great News?

I have held off talking about the B.1.1.529 variant for a few days as, to be honest, there is not a lot of concrete information released to the public. Oh, there are comments galore in the press about major mutations to the spike protein jumping to the conclusion this could be the worst variant yet. But as the saying goes: headlines, not facts, sell papers. Before we get panicked about we don't yet know, we need to take a step back and see what we do know and what this might all mean. Specifically, is B.1.1.529 more transmissible and pathogenic?

Officially named OMICRON: First, the WHO are calling the new variant Omicron, just to confuse us. According to the rumour mill, Nu was skipped as it is easily confused with new and Xi, well because it is a 'common' last name, you know like the leader of China. But give them their due, I guess we did need a naming convention after all. Otherwise, places like the UK and South Africa, which genomically sequence more than many countries, would have several variants named after them by now.

Omicron Has Already Spread Around the World: Omicron has likely been around for more than a month. It has already spread across the globe. It has been detected in many countries including the US and Canada. The restrictions on flights, initially by European countries, are just delaying the inevitable. At best, they will give us more time to better study the new variant and maybe put a response in place. After all, world leaders have been preparing for a new variant to emerge ever since Delta showed up a year ago. Right?

Omicron More Transmissible: The Delta variant is currently dominant across the globe, including southern Africa, due to its greater infectivity. For the past two weeks, cases in South Africa have been increasing significantly and a cross-section of these new cases are Omicron. The fact that the Omicron variant numbers are visible at all, means that the new variant is more transmissible than Delta.

We Don't Know If Omicron is More Vaccine Resistant: There is pure speculation that the Omicron variant could be more vaccine-resistant. Meaning that the break-through case rate could be even higher than with Delta. If this proves to be the case, this will mean that the pharma companies, who claim they can tweak their vaccine products in a matter of months, will be knocking on our doors yet again.

Is Omicron More Pathogenic? Finally, there is the big unknown - will it make people get sicker and be more likely to die? Early information suggests not. To this point there has not been a single report of a person being hospitalised or having died as a result of being diagnosed with Omicron. Symptoms seem to be limited to headaches, nausea and tiredness.

Omicron Could Be Good News: In the long run, the emergence of Omicron could be extremely good news, not bad. Yes, you read this right. If Omicron is significantly more transmissible than Delta it will become the dominant variant. If it is less deadly, it will cease to become a risk for a much greater cross-section of the population. This means that the health risk is decreased and any natural immunity will spread more quickly. This is the way many pathogens of the past, while still endemic, faded away to become just part of normal life. Omicron might just mean society as a whole will be able to walk away from many of our current measures. Omicrom might just be our ticket to a restriction-free '23.

Fingers crossed.

Cheers

Cliff