Is Omicron the beginning of one other bleak new yr or the start of the tip for the pandemic within the UK? The Observer’s science editor Robin McKie reports
How shut does this yr’s outbreak parallel that of final winter?
At first look, the 2 years look related, with case numbers rocketing in just a few weeks within the UK. Nonetheless, hospitalisations and deaths from Covid-19 stay very low to this point this yr, with newest analysis suggesting that the brand new variant seems to set off fewer circumstances of extreme sickness than its viral predecessors.
Scientists have typically handled these outcomes research as excellent news however have additionally counselled warning. Every day Covid-19 case numbers are nonetheless rising – they reached a record 122,000 on Friday – and it was estimated that 1.7m individuals had Covid-19 within the UK final week.
Are there noticeable variations within the ages of these affected by Omicron?
Crucially, a lot of the new circumstances have occurred in younger adults, which has led some researchers to warn that if Omicron begins to have an effect on older – extra weak – individuals in larger numbers, hospitalisations might nonetheless bounce. Alternatively, an enormous variety of individuals – particularly the aged – have now been give vaccines and boosters and may have gained appreciable safety in opposition to Omicron. It stays to be seen how these various factors have an effect on figures. At current, knowledge continues to be being gathered and it’s too early to make certain. On the similar time, coverage selections to guard public well being nonetheless need to be taken.
The issue is highlighted by infectious illness epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh College. “There’s inevitably a lag between an infection and hospitalisation,” he instructed the journal Nature final week. “However within the meantime, coverage selections need to be made, and that’s not simple.”
Is the virus prone to lose its energy to trigger extreme sickness?
Many scientists consider proof is now suggesting that this concept could also be right. Latest research in Scotland, England and South Africa all level on this course. “My intestine feeling is that this variant is step one in a course of by which the virus adapts to the human inhabitants to supply extra benign signs,” says Dr Julian Tang, Professor of Respiratory Sciences at Leicester College. “In a way, it’s to the virus’s benefit if it impacts individuals in a approach that that they don’t get too sick – as a result of then they will stroll round and mingle in society and unfold the virus much more.”
So will Covid-19 find yourself behaving like flu?
Some well being officers have predicted that Covid-19 might find yourself behaving like influenza, which requires a brand new vaccine to cope with new strains that seem yearly. Nonetheless, Professor Martin Hibberd, of the London College of Hygiene and Tropical Medication, argues that coronaviruses – like people who already trigger frequent colds – don’t behave this fashion: “They don’t seem as new strains yearly. The explanation we get colds in winter is as a result of our immunity to coronaviruses doesn’t final very lengthy. And this virus appears to be extra related to people who trigger frequent colds. In different phrases, we should still want to consider giving vaccines to guard in opposition to Covid-19 yearly as a result of immunity will all the time slip.”
That doesn’t imply we face “doom and gloom” for the following 5 years, provides Tang. “I believe the virus will evolve itself out of the pandemic pressure very quickly and develop into milder, extra transmissible to the purpose the place you might solely want to consider vaccinating the extra weak members of the inhabitants.”
