Here, in just one paragraph, is what we know for certain about Covid’s new “Omicron” variant. A name which, at least to my ears, makes the variant sound like an evil Transformer, ready to do battle with Optimus Prime and the gang:
The variant was discovered in South Africa. This does not mean that it originated in South Africa – it simply means that they were the first to discover it. It has subsequently been discovered in many other countries, including Israel, Belgium, Holland, the United Kingdom, and several African countries. It is potentially much more contagious than the presently dominant strain of covid, the Delta Variant. There are some – completely unsubstantiated – fears that it may be more capable of infecting vaccinated people than other strains of covid, though Pfizer and others have said that they expect to be able to make a targeted vaccine for it, if necessary, inside 100 days.
And that, dear reader… is about it. Everything else you read about Omicron, as of this morning, is pure speculation.
And almost all of that speculation is alarmist. Alarmism, to some extent, is understandable. People in Ireland and elsewhere have sacrificed much in the world’s great, and futile, war on Covid. A fear that that may all have been for naught, and that Omicron might sweep through society in a few weeks, collapsing the health service, is somewhat understandable, though no more rational than most other covid fears.
Alarmism is also incentivised. It was difficult, listening to the radio this weekend, not to notice that some commentators were almost struggling to contain their glee at the emergence of the variant. After all, if you are a public health expert, you can be sure that you will be more likely to get prime media billing for flying a red flag and demanding “an urgent response” than you will for suggesting that there is not much need to worry.
Again, this is human: If Omicron turns out to be not that important, nobody will ever condemn you for having advised caution anyway. If it turns out, on the off chance, to be the world’s worst nightmare, you can be sure that those who said not to worry about it will be held up as examples of complacency. If you want to preserve your reputation, and enhance your profile, screaming about the danger is always a much better bet than advising people not to panic.
But the facts remain the facts. And the fact is that there is no reason to panic. At this point of the covid 19 pandemic, people with cooler heads recognise that the transmissibility of a virus is nowhere near as important as the virulence of the virus: That is to say, the question we should really be asking is this: Out of each thousand people who get Omicron, how many end up in hospital?
And, though it is early days and we do not know for certain, the early indications are: Not very many:
"It's too early, there's not enough known about the severity of the disease going forward; we don't know if the [larger number of] mutations mean anything… I would have expected by now that we would have seen more severe cases" #OnTheRecordNT
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) November 28, 2021
There are good evolutionary reasons, by the way, to suspect that Omicron will not be especially virulent. The fact is that as viruses evolve, their general desire is to evolve in a way that makes them more transmissible, but less lethal. That is because, put simply, the goal of a virus is to replicate, and make more viruses. It can do that by being easier to transmit. If it kills its hosts, though, it is condemned to eventual extinction. It is an observable pattern that viruses, over time, become less lethal for this reason. Don’t take my word for it: Here is Dr. Francois Balloux, who is the director of the genetics institute at the University of London.
Respiratory viruses become less virulent over time as the host acquires immunity through vaccination and prior infection. Though, 'observed virulence' is a joint property of the pathogen, the host and the environment in combination, and not of the pathogen alone.
2/— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) November 28, 2021
None of this, by the way, is reason for boundless optimism, either. It remains very possible that Omicron could be the thing people fear: A variant of the virus which is just as lethal as the alpha strain, but much more transmissible, with the potential to destroy our health services. In that context, the caution displayed by the UK and US Governments, in temporarily suspending travel from badly affected areas, makes sense: Until we know for certain what we are dealing with, assuming the best is as foolish as assuming the worst.
What makes no sense, though, is what we have seen in some quarters in Ireland: Speculating about new lockdowns; having Eamon Ryan on the airwaves to say that the announcement of Omicron was “dispiriting” and “depressing”; RTE leading every bulleting with reports of Covid’s new superweapon, and so on.
It is important to remember that many people have incentives to make Omicron a massive story. Since the pandemic began, a whole ecosystem has developed which thrives on bad news covid stories. Media wants clicks. Covid experts want to be the first one to raise the alarm. Politicians – especially opposition politicians – want to be able to say “I told you so” if it ends up being bad. Very, very, very few people are incentivised to tell you not to worry unduly about Omicron. In its own way, that’s a microcosm of the whole pandemic. Lots of people do well when the public is in a state of panic. That does not mean we should listen to them.