Bracing for Omicron

KARACHI: From Wuhan to Botswana it’s a story of an ever-growing number of recognised types of viruses emerging since the Coronavirus pandemic began in late 2019. Though the evidence suggests the new Covid-19 variant, named Omicron, may be more transmissible than other Covid-19 variants, there are still many unknowns at play.

The Omicron variant, which was first identified in Botswana in South Africa, has prompted concerns among scientists and public health officials because of an unusually high number of mutations providing the potential to make the virus more transmissible and less susceptible to existing vaccines.

However, the recent findings of South African Medical Association Chairperson Dr Angelique Coetzee are pretty encouraging. According to Dr Coetzee patients infected with the Omicron variant have exhibited mild symptoms and are recovering without having to be hospitalised. Even non-vaccinated persons are only exhibiting mild symptoms of the new variant.

Despite the fact that public health experts have stated that at this time there is no firm evidence that Omicron is more dangerous than previous variants like the Delta variant, which quickly overtook its predecessors in the United States and other countries, the reaction is severe. Where the newest variant is concerned, there has been an alarming response. There has been considerable global panic with a number of countries banning flights from South Africa, which is widely believed to be the birthplace of Omicron.

World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described the travel bans as ‘unfair’ and ‘counterproductive.’ However, he conceded that he, “understands the concern of all countries to protect their citizens against a variant that we don’t yet fully understand,” he said. Meanwhile, the pandemic’s voice of reason Chief Medical Advisor to the President of United States Dr Anthony Fauci, stated that he believes that much remains unknown about the new variant, including whether it is more contagious than previous strains, whether it is more likely to make people seriously ill, and whether it can thwart vaccines. He added that more would be known about the Omicron strain in two to four weeks as scientists grow and test lab samples of the virus.

There is also another reason to remain calm regarding the situation: vaccine manufacturers and medical professionals have expressed confidence that existing vaccines can be tweaked to make the shots being administered more effective against new variants. Dr Fauci has also confirmed that all those who had close contact with the infected individual in Botswana had tested negative for the virus. Furthermore, intense research into the new coronavirus variant first identified in southern Africa has just begun. Another reason to remain calm is that Pakistan has only detected a single case of the Omicron variant – and even this has yet to be confirmed. However, there is still no harm in getting booster shots after consulting a doctor or a healthcare professional.

However, many questions remain unanswered. To find out how worried we should be Bolnews spoke with a senior healthcare professional based in the United States, Dr Ovais Zubair. When speaking about the transmissibility of the virus, Dr Zubair revealed that, “[Omicron] appears to be more transmissible than other variants and can potentially infect three to six times more individuals as compared to the Delta variant,” however he maintained that the, “infections have been relatively mild.” He did alert that despite this more still needs to be learned about the virus. Urging the public to get vaccinated, Dr Zubair stated that even if the symptoms are mild, we cannot dismiss concerns around Omicron completely. “The number of cases of reinfections have increased slightly in South Africa but this is still being studied,” he claimed.

So what is the solution to getting life back on track? According to Dr Zubair, travel bans are certainly not it. He maintained that, “travel bans will merely slow down the spread of the variant slightly but will definitely not contain it. It’s a knee jerk reaction.” He further lamented that, “these blanket restrictions will only hurt economies and disincentives countries from reporting new variants in the future.” A more productive measure to curb the spread of the virus is to use existing precautionary methods, stated the experienced healthcare professional. Laying out a framework, Dr Zubair stated that, we must only allow vaccinated persons to travel, ask travelers to have negative PCR tests, passengers with symptoms should not be able to travel, masks should remain mandatory and those travelling should be tested at each point of entry. He added that, “South Africa should be praised and not punished for promptly reporting this new variant.”

The key to ending the pandemic once and for all lies in widespread vaccination – if we eliminate vaccine inequity, we eliminate the coronavirus pandemic. As per Dr Zubair, “a large number of third world countries have only been able to vaccinate less than 25 per cent of their population, as rich countries are accumulating all the vaccines being produced.” As a result poorer countries continue to be the breeding ground for newer variants of the virus. The Western world needs to share vaccines with developing nations to speed up the vaccination process. If this isn’t done more mutations, which would likely be deadlier, are expected to continue.