Friday, December 10, 2021
Britain could be a bellwether of what other countries will see from the new coronavirus variant. Officials say Omicron could account for most cases within weeks.
With cases of the Omicron variant doubling every three days and the government doing an about-face on restrictions it had long resisted, Britain is bracing for a new coronavirus surge, unsure if it will be a relatively minor event or a return to the dark days of earlier pandemic waves.
So far, the number of Omicron cases — 817 confirmed by Thursday, though officials say the real figure is likely much higher — is small compared with the daily average of 48,000 new coronavirus cases overall.
But the government’s Health Security Agency warned that if the recent growth rate continues, they expect to see at least 50 percent of COVID-19 cases to be caused by the Omicron variant in the next two to four weeks.
Early evidence in Britain backs up tentative findings elsewhere, notably in South Africa, where the heavily mutated new variant is already widespread.
It appears to be the most contagious form of the virus yet, a previous case of COVID-19 provides little immunity to it, and vaccines seem less effective against it. But it also seems to cause less severe illness than earlier variants.
Britain’s experience with Omicron may be a harbinger of what others can expect.
Until now, it has been looser about social restrictions than many other nations in Western Europe, and Britain ordinarily has extensive travel to and from South Africa, so it could be the first wealthy country to be hit hard by Omicron.
It also has one of the world’s most robust systems for sequencing viral genomes, so it can identify and track new variants earlier and more thoroughly than other countries.
Much remains to be learned about the variant, but experts say that what is known so far is worrying.
Jeffrey Barrett, the director of the COVID-19 genomics initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Britain, said the new data made one thing clear that it will spread very fast, even in countries that have a very high vaccination rate like the U.K.
The current estimate that Omicron is doubling roughly every three days, in a country where 70 percent of people are fully vaccinated and 32 percent have had a booster dose, is “really striking,” he added.
Even if Omicron infection is less severe on the whole, experts warn that if it leads to an enormous surge in cases, even a small percentage of them resulting in seriously ill patients could once again overwhelm hospitals and cause a spike in deaths.
Dr. Barrett said he was more worried than he was about the previous variants.
He said that possibility that Omicron cases are less severe and that vaccines could still offer some protection mean that the picture could be less pessimistic.
Michael Ryan, the Head of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program warned during a news conference that as the world has seen before with other variants, if they are allowed to spread unchecked even though they are not individually more virulent or more lethal, they just generate more cases.
They put pressure on the health system and more people die. That’s what we can avoid.
The W.H.O. Chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, acknowledged that there was some evidence that Omicron caused milder illness then Delta, though it was too early to be definitive.
On Wednesday, Britain adopted a new strategy in response to Omicron, urging people to work from home where possible, introducing new mask mandates and requiring people to show vaccine passports for entry to some venues.
It was a striking reversal for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had opposed stricter controls that have been adopted around Europe, which was suffering through its biggest coronavirus wave so far before Omicron appeared.
Analysis of the data collected in Britain showed increased household transmission risk, a key indicator of how fast the variant can spread.
The health agency cautioned that the data was still sparse and the conclusions tentative, with deeper studies underway. But Britain’s genomic sequencing system offers some of the strongest evidence yet on the variant.
All positive coronavirus tests from people arriving in Britain are sent for genomic sequencing, and as part of the country’s routine surveillance, around 15 to 20 percent of all positive P.C.R. tests of people already in the country are also sent for sequencing.
The genomic surveillance could also give Britain a head start in determining how severe Omicron cases are, though there will be a lag because it takes days or weeks for a person who gets infected to become seriously ill.
It is increasingly evident that Omicron is highly infectious and there is emerging laboratory and early clinical evidence to suggest that both vaccine-acquired and naturally acquired immunity against infection is reduced for this variant, Susan Hopkins, the Chief Medical Adviser to the Health Security Agency, said in a statement.
Experts fear what that could mean for Britain’s already struggling National Health Service.
Chaand Nagpaul, the chair of the British Medical Association, a trade union for doctors and medical students, said the government decision was the right one and had come at a crucial moment.
He said in a statement that the country had been having increasingly high incidences of COVID-19 for some time, adding that health care workers are rightly worried about the impact the Omicron variant could have on the health system’s ability to function if caseloads rise fast.
Some hospitals have already cancelled elective care again, a strategy seen at the start of the pandemic to free up resources for treating coronavirus patients.
Patients are already experiencing hours long waits for ambulances as a result of the existing pressures on the system, Dr. Nagpaul added.
While the number of COVID hospitalizations today is much lower than last winter, we must not risk complacency by ignoring the rapid doubling of Omicron cases every two to three days, he said.
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