Status of Omicron Variant of COVID
As of December 12, 2021
By Ken Karch, PE, MPH
The COVID-19 Omicron variant is much more
transmissible than any of the earlier variants
This is both good news and bad news
Bad
News
The bad news is that it spreads very
rapidly, giving little time to develop prevention and treatment strategies…if
it were as deadly as the plague, cholera, typhoid, or smallpox (in their day)
or MERS more recently, it would be a human calamity, given the ease of spread
around the world. The R value is about
2.5 in South Africa (the most advanced nation in terms of disease stages), as
opposed to about 1 for Delta. Of all new
COVID cases, in South Africa, over 95% are Omicron, with Delta having shrunk to
less than 5%.
The R factor of about 2.5 means the rate of
new cases is doubling about every 3 days, indicating the entire population of
the UK (a second exemplar) will likely be virtually totally infected within
2 weeks, and the US during January.
This is likely to lead to many, horrific, ill-founded,
and contradictory actions by poorly-informed elected officials and private
organizations.
Omicron also appears to be much more
transmissible, and with more severe consequences, for young people, than
did Delta, whose consequences were largely centered on older adults with immune
system problems.
Good
News
The good news is that it apparently is much
less deadly than any of these, or even of the Delta variant…perhaps by a
factor of 10 (as against the Delta variant).
Normalized hospital admission and death rates are far below those for
Delta, and both are much reduced from just 2 months ago, notwithstanding a recent
widely reported spike in Michigan. COVID
hospital admissions in Washington State are about 10 % of capacity, where the
concern level was about 20 %, with the actual data exceeding 20 % for about a
month during August/September, 2021. Both hospital admissions and death will
likely show modest increases, due largely to the greatly increased number of
people exposed. Treatment modalities developed for earlier COVID variants
seem to work for Omicron, greatly reducing the need for hospitalization or oxygen
intubation; and a growing body of studies is identifying alternative
prevention and treatment techniques.
Other pieces of good news include reports
that past COVID infections and vaccinations seem to confer some degree of
protection from serious complications, the need for hospitalization, and death;
that vaccines are capable of being much more rapidly developed; and that
the rapid rate of infection is likely to attain a degree of herd immunity
not yet reached for Delta. .
Bottom
Line
Cautious optimism that Omicron may
out-perform and replace Delta as the dominant
COVID variant in Washington State, the USD, and the world, with vaccination,
previous infections, and rapid attainment of herd immunity ending the COVID
crisis, and reducing it to endemic proportions, such as the common cold,
another COVID variant.
Recommendations
Continue social distancing, masks, and full
vaccination encouragement. Increase
focus on young peoples’ exposure, prevention, and treatment. Relax non-traditional prevention and
treatment protocols.
