Underlining that it is far from being defeated, the detection of the B.1.1.529 variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the province of Gauteng in South Africa has already triggered waves of concerns and led to the closing of some borders to travellers from the affected region.
Now dubbed Omicron by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the anxiety about this new variant has been driven by the number of mutations it exhibits.
“This variant has a large number of mutations and some of these mutations have some worrying characteristics,” Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for Covid-19, said on Friday.
Lawrence Young, a virologist and a professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School in the United Kingdom declared that the Omicron variant was “very worrying.”
“It is the most heavily mutated version of the virus we have seen to date. This variant carries some changes we’ve seen previously in other variants but never all together in one virus. It also has novel mutations,” Young said in a statement.
According to CNN, the variant has about 50 mutations and South African genomic scientists said on Thursday more than 30 of these were found in the infamous spike protein —the mechanism the virus uses to invade cells.
There have also been optimistic pronouncements on Omicron. According to the Times of Israel, Virologist Barry Schoub, the head of South Africa’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19 vaccines, told Israel’s Channel 12 news yesterday that based on initial data from cases in South Africa, it seemed the vaccine would still protect most people from severe COVID-19.
“I think what we can be pretty comfortable… that the vaccine will still prevent serious disease,” he said. “That I think we are pretty sure about. How effective it will be in preventing milder disease — that we’ve still got to understand.”
“It’s unlikely that it’s going to cause more severe disease,” Mr Schoub said. “Certainly what we’ve been seeing up to now… the great majority of the patients have been mild. In fact, there hasn’t been a very substantial increase in hospital admissions so far.”
Mr Schoub also told Bloomberg that the large number of mutations found in the Omicron variant appears to destabilise the virus, which might make it less “fit” than the dominant Delta strain.
“In a way, hopefully it won’t displace Delta because Delta we know responds very well to the vaccine,” he said.
It will take at least another two weeks to learn more about the transmissibility of the virus and if it exhibits characteristics that allow it to escape the vaccines currently in use and the range of therapies being employed to treat the infected such as monoclonal antibodies.
Until we know more, we here in this part of the world should do the right thing and get fully vaccinated and ultimately take the booster shot. Like the rise of the potent Delta variant in India last year, the arrival of Omicron emphasises the truism that trails far behind the advance of the virus: variants – potent or innocuous – will continue to emerge where there are large numbers of persons who have not been vaccinated. One of the major reasons for these huge pockets of the unvaccinated is vaccine inequity. Many of those who are hurriedly seeking to close borders are those who did little to ensure that vaccines were urgently shared with a thousand Gautengs in all parts of the developing world and beyond. The arrival of Omicron is a telling rebuke to the failure of the moneyed international community to recognise both our shared humanity and the pithy truth that no one is safe from this virus until we are all safe from it. Progress on cutting through impediments like the intellectual property rights around vaccines has been woefully slow.
The other reason for the reservoir of the unvaccinated is relevant to Guyana and many other countries. Too many people have foolishly questioned the wisdom of taking the COVID-19 vaccine and have allowed myths and the insidious fabrications of social media to dissuade them from becoming vaccinated. This resistance must be robustly countered now and it requires the government, the opposition, Parliament, the religions and all other stakeholders with access to ears and eyes to mount a vibrant campaign to swiftly expand vaccinations so that the entire population can be better protected from COVID and its variants. This campaign should be concentrated particularly in Regions 10, 8 and 2. The Ministry of Health must do a better job of reaching the unvaccinated and convincing them of the need to take the vaccine.
Guyana has the good fortune at the moment to have a range of vaccines for first, second and booster vaccinations. These vaccines comprise AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Sputnik V, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson and Johnson and a choice now exists at the vaccination stations. Based on the latest information from the Ministry of Health, as of November 26, 398, 949 or 77.8% of the adult population has received a first vaccination. However, only 53.6% or 275,126 of adults have been fully vaccinated even as the early concept of `herd immunity’ is now seen as less and less plausible when account is taken of vaccine hesitancy and rampaging mutations. In addition to adults, 28,985 adolescents – only 39.7% – have received a single dose while 20,153 or 27.6% are fully vaccinated.
Borders have already been shut against a large part of Africa: South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola in a clear sign that not much has been learnt from the beginnings of the virus in Wuhan, China. The Omicron mutant has already escaped the region and this is not the time for ostracism but for stepped up testing and sensible precautions.
The government here has apparently abandoned plans for testing for COVID variants. We urge that it immediately begins checks for variants employing whatever collaboration is reasonable and necessary. There is a wealth of data that local health authorities should be sorting and compiling as COVID continues to claim lives. For example, of the post-vaccination deaths which of the vaccines in use here appeared to show the lowest efficacy? Of the persons who were known to have recovered after testing positive for COVID, have there been any reinfections. Were any of these re-infected persons vaccinated? Has testing been done of antibody levels in those who were infected compared to those who were vaccinated to determine longevity and quantum in the bloodstream?
In an interview with The Atlantic, Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, an infectious-disease physician, virologist, and global-health expert at Emory University offered some useful perspective on the new variant.
Ms Titanji told interviewer Katherine J. Wu : “A good place to start is reminding people that we are definitely not where we were two years ago, when SARS-CoV-2 emerged. We now have a better understanding of how the virus is transmitted from person to person. We have antivirals that are coming down the pike. We have a better understanding of how to manage and treat cases of people who do get infected. We have vaccines and incredible mRNA technology that allows us to adapt quickly to a changing virus, and we will have second-generation vaccines. It’s definitely not back to square one.
“Secondly, this does not mean that the vaccines that people have are now completely useless—the doses they have received are not null and void. We have not yet seen a variant of concern emerge that has been able to completely escape the effect of vaccines. The immunity from the vaccines may be less protective, which may translate into more post-vaccine infections from a new variant, if it takes off. But that is yet to be determined.
“We also know that a booster dose really does boost the antibody response. A new variant could dent the [protection offered by the immune system], but that usually happens in degrees. There is still going to be immune responsiveness from previous immunizations, and infections from ancestral versions of the virus. It may simply mean that you need more of those antibodies to be able to neutralize that new variant of concern. We also have T cells, which play a role and may not be as impacted by the variant”.
The arrival of Omicron requires vigilance by the authorities here and in CARICOM and stepped up efforts to expand education and vaccinations.
