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We need to ride out Omicron with booster and preventive measures
View(s):The Omicron variant is highly transmissible, even more transmissible than Delta that preceded it. It also has the capacity to partially evade immunity from past infection and from two doses of a vaccine, although some protection from severe disease can be expected, reiterated an expert this week.
Prof. Malik Peiris
Three doses of the vaccine, especially a booster with the BioNTech (Pfizer) vaccine, provide much better immunity against severe disease, hospitalization and death, Prof. Malik Peiris, Professor of Virology at the School of Public Health, Hong Kong University (HKU) told the Sunday Times.
He said that given the very high transmissibility of Omicron, case numbers will increase rapidly, as is now being seen in Sri Lanka, as well as many other countries. Omicron is less severe compared to Delta. Therefore, the number of severe cases per infection will be lower.
“But in the context of large numbers of cases arising in a short period of time, even the ‘less severe’ Omicron virus will lead to significant numbers of hospitalizations and deaths. One positive feature of Omicron is that while the increase in cases will be very steep, the epidemic will peak within a few weeks and the decrease of cases will also be very steep,” said Prof. Peiris, pointing out that this means that “we need to ensure that hospital and high dependency beds and ICU capacity are not exceeded during the sharp increase in cases”.
“Therefore, it makes sense to reduce all non-essential gatherings, especially of large numbers of people and reduce or avoid non-essential travel and social gatherings as far as possible, for the next few weeks. The positive thing we can all hang on to is that these self-restrictions do not have to be very prolonged. The outbreak will be declining in a few weeks. So it is very advisable to be careful and patient for the next few weeks,” he said.
To the question whether there is a danger of a worse variant, in the light of news from Wuhan, China, about one spread by bats, Prof. Peiris says that SARS-CoV-2 will continue to evolve and lead to novel variants. It is not possible to predict the future but one can expect more variants.
The variant of importance, according to him, is what we can already see on the horizon – the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron which is spreading in parts of the world. This is more transmissible than the BA.1 sub-variant.
Other viruses reported in bats, meanwhile, are unlikely to pose major threats to humans in the near term, he says, adding that on the question of Omicron mixing with Delta, it is possible. “Omicron may recombine with Delta to cause a ‘hybrid virus’ but it is not likely and it has not been seen so far. One report of such a virus from Cyprus appears to be a false alarm.”
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