Panic overdrive: Omicron not that lethal!

Sopuruchi Onwuka

Despite the global wave of panic over the new Omicron strain of the novel coronavirus also called COVID-19, emerging findings strongly indicate little or no aggravation of the persisting pandemic from the variant.

Global vigilance against the spread and outcome of the new variant includes roll out of new list of travel bans against African countries including Nigeria, reinvestment in vaccine booster shots and reintroduction of masking even across the vaccinated populations of the world.

Nigeria, a leading member of the Britain led Commonwealth of Nations is currently battling travel ban over Omicron from the United Kingdom. The travel ban remains the deepest dent in the relationship between the former colonial master and former subject under the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has blasted such measures as “travel apartheid.”

While the spread containment measures continue to unsettle cities with mass protests and diplomatic relations with consular disputes, scientists who have devoted to studying the damage potentials of the Omicron point at comforting observation that the variant has not led to mass hospitalization and death so far.

They also warn however that it is yet to be established why the Omicron holds intense threat of widespread transmissibility, reaching at least 38 countries and explaining the associated panic across the globe.

After describing the Omicron as a variant of concern, the World Health Organization (WHO) clarified weekend that there have been no fatalities linked to Omicron even as studies on the structure and mode of the virus continue.

Global leaders in health and medical sciences including Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Roche and others have since returned to laboratories to assess the efficacy of their vaccines against the virus, and many of them have assured that Omicron remains under immune coverage.

Emergencies Director at the World Health Organization (WHO), Michael Ryan, declared in a statement available to The Oracle Today that studies are still ongoing on the vulnerability of the new variant to existing treatment and prevention. He added that the studies would also determine if Omicron causes more severe illness.

However, the high rate of Omicron’s transmissibility, especially reinfection among vaccinated and convalescent population, remains a source of concern to all agencies across the globe.

Although nearly 60 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are concerns the heavily mutated Omicron variant could reverse that progress on immunity.

Medical advisor the United States’ government, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says that while the Omicron spreads twice as fast as the Delta variant booster shots increase antibody protection against a range of variants.

He said there’s every reason to believe that full and booster vaccination provide some degree of cross-protection very likely against severe disease, even against the Omicron variant.

Tracked Omicron cases among the vaccinated in the U.S. showed only mild symptoms.

Dr Fauci indicated on Sunday early indications of the rapidly spreading Omicron suggest it may be less dangerous than delta which currently maintains lead with more than 99% of cases and driving a surge of hospitalizations.

In the United States, more than 6,600 new hospital admissions from infection rate of 86,000 per day are being reported daily, according to tracking data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In South Africa now designated ground zero of the Omicron, hospitalization rates have not increased proportionately.

“Thus far, it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it,” Fauci said. “But we have really got to be careful before we make any determinations that it is less severe or it really doesn’t cause any severe illness, comparable to delta.”

Fauci said the Biden administration is considering lifting travel restrictions against noncitizens entering the United States from several African countries.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to lift that ban in a quite reasonable period of time,” Fauci said. “We all feel very badly about the hardship that has been put on not only on South Africa but the other African countries.”

Immunology professor at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Bruce Walker, is quoted in a report available to The Oracle Today that the Omicron in extreme case might be more transmissible and efficient at making copies of itself and thus more dangerous.

He hinted that Omicron might even end up being more transmissible but less dangerous and can even offer protection against future infection with a similar coronavirus.

U.S. officials continued urging people to get vaccinated and to receive booster shots, as well as take precautions such as wearing masks when among strangers indoors, saying anything that helps protect against delta will also help protect against other variants.

Even if omicron proves less dangerous than delta, it remains problematic, World Health Organization epidemiologist Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove told CBS’ “Face The Nation.”

“Even if we have a large number of cases that are mild, some of those individuals will need hospitalizations,” she said. “They will need to go into ICU and some people will die. … We don’t want to see that happen on top of an already difficult situation with delta circulating globally.”