Omicron The beginning or the end of the pandemic?

It is in the nature of a virus to mutate, or make errors in replication, presenting a number of variations that could either lessen or heighten the potency of the virus. The time for lockdowns has passed - the world is coming to terms with living with the virus and what that could mean for us. Omicron might be a milder variant but caution is advised, as entering another lockdown might not be the answer. Extra care is vital, more so with the emergence of florona, a combination of the influenza and Sars CoV2 viruses.

Dr N Prabhudev

Omicron has overtaken the Delta variant -- with the latest mutation of the coronavirus accounting for more than 70% of all cases the world over. This new variant poses a number of questions, including: Do we see another variant in the near future? If so, what can that mean for the general population? The idea of encountering another variant is not far-fetched since mutations are common with viruses.

The virus will always make errors as it reproduces. Those errors in replications are what we call mutations. Most mutations offer no advantage to the virus and some of them might even make the virus nonviable. Some mutations offer an advantage in transmission, and therefore to reproduce...The virus just wants to reproduce as much as possible. So there certainly can be more mutations. And some can be lethal.

The Omicron variant has dominated headlines, prompted dramatic government reactions, and sparked a renewed interest in pandemic forecasts. Early opinions have veered from knee-jerk responses, worst-case scenarios to assertions that - as nothing can be said with certainty now.

Learn to live with it?

Coronavirus will be the new flu virus we have to live with now! No matter the severity of the variant, the appetite for shutdowns or other large-scale social interventions simply isn’t there. Early data indicates that the immediate epidemiological future is uncertain – it could be a mere few months of relatively mild inconvenience before Omicron goes out without a whimper. Whatever course Omicron—or future strains of the disease—might take, we are about to experience the end of the pandemic as a social phenomenon.

This means that we have effectively given up on ‘slowing the spread’ or ‘flattening the curve’. To a much greater degree than we did during previous waves, we have quietly decided to throw up our hands. Scientists have their own way of deciding that a pandemic is over. But one useful social-scientific marker is when people have gotten used to living with the ongoing presence of a particular pathogen. This is known as Virus Fatigue. By that definition, the massive surge of Omicron infections that is currently coursing through scores of developed countries without eliciting more than a half-hearted response marks the end of the pandemic as a social phenomenon.

Viruses are most dangerous when they are introduced into a population that has never had contact with them before. The more “immunologically naive” people there are, the more of them are likely to suffer from bad outcomes. Vaccines will lower the proportion of hospitalizations especially because Omicron is infecting lots of vaccinated people.

Vaccines are a triumph of hope and life over fear. They are the triumph of science over pathology!

India has administered more than one billion vaccine doses by October end. 73% of the total population have been given at least a single dose of the vaccine; close to 30% have received both doses and India is yet to start vaccinations of those under the age of 18. Vaccines for those in the 12-18 age group, Zy- CoV-D were approved on August 20 along with Bharath Biotech vaccine for the same age group!

Once a large portion of the population is exposed to Omicron, humanity will be a lot less immunologically naive, which might help us better handle future strains of the coronavirus without a significant increase in mortality.

An uncertain future

What seemed likely earlier this month is now quite certain: A big Omicron wave is coming. A lot has changed for Omicron in just two weeks. At December’s onset, the variant was barely present in Europe, showing up in 1 to 2 percent of COVID cases. Now, the variant accounts for 72 percent of new cases in London, where everybody seems to know somebody with COVID. In the U.K. and Denmark, Omicron case numbers are doubling every other day. The same exponential growth is happening in the United States too, in the midst of the holiday season.

We know enough about Omicron to understand that the time to act is now. It is the fifth variant of concern of Coronavirus. We know that it is more infectious but less virulent. For the record, Omicron is currently three to five times as transmissible as Delta. The most intri