From today's NYT: Don't panic. Get vaccinated. Eric
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November 29, 2021
[Author
Headshot]<https://www.nytimes.com/by/david-leonhardt?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>
By David
Leonhardt<https://www.nytimes.com/by/david-leonhardt?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>
Good morning. What should you assume about Omicron?
[https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/11/29/multimedia/29ambriefing-omicron/29ambriefing-omicron-articleLarge-v2.jpg]
Crowds in London this weekend.Tom Nicholson/Reuters
The very early signs
The public reaction to new Covid-19 variants has followed a familiar cycle.
People tend to assume the worst about two different questions — whether the
variant leads to faster transmission of the Covid virus and whether it causes
more severe illness among infected people.
The first of those worries came true with the Alpha and Delta variants: Alpha
was more contagious than the original version of the virus, and Delta was even
more contagious than Alpha. But the second of the worries has largely not been
borne
out<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/briefing/delta-variant-cases-severity.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>:
With both Alpha and Delta, the percentage of Covid cases that led to
hospitalization or death held fairly steady.
This pattern isn’t surprising, scientists say. Viruses often evolve in ways
that help them flourish. Becoming more contagious allows a virus to do so;
becoming more severe has the potential to do the opposite, because more of a
virus’s hosts can die before they infect others.
It is too soon to know whether the Omicron variant will fit the pattern. But
the very early evidence suggests that it may. Unfortunately, Omicron seems
likely to be more contagious than Delta, including among vaccinated people.
Fortunately, the evidence so far does not indicate that Omicron is causing more
severe illness:
* Barry Schoub, a South African virologist who advises the government
there, has said that Omicron cases have tended to be “mild to moderate.” Schoub
added<https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1464901101803687938?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>:
“That’s a good sign. But let me stress it is early days.”
* Dr. Rudo Mathivha, the head of the intensive care unit at a hospital in
Soweto, South Africa,
said<https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-science-health-lifestyle-83cad19ead1725137bd7c3a371792ab7?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>
that severe cases have been concentrated among people who were not fully
vaccinated.
* Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, a top health official in Israel, emphasized
yesterday that when vaccinated people were infected, they became only slightly
ill, according to the publication
Haaretz<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/top-israeli-health-expert-covid-vaccine-reduces-severe-illness-in-omicron-cases-1.10421310?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>.
* As The Times’s Carl Zimmer
wrote<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/health/omicron-variant-vaccines.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>,
“For now, there’s no evidence that Omicron causes more severe disease than
previous variants.”
In the initial days after a new variant is discovered, I know that many people
focus on worst-case scenarios. The alarming headlines can make it seem as if
the pandemic may be about to start all over again, with vaccines powerless to
stop the variant.
To be clear, there is genuine uncertainty about Omicron. Maybe it will prove to
be worse than the very early signs suggest and cause more severe illness than
Delta. But assuming the worst about each worrisome new variant is not a
science-based, rational response. And alarmism has its own costs, especially to
mental health, notes Dr. Raghib Ali, an epidemiologist at the University of
Cambridge.
“Of course we should take it seriously,” Ali
wrote<https://twitter.com/drraghibali/status/1464208883656892417?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>
on Twitter, “but there is no plausible scenario that this variant is going to
take us back to square one (i.e. the situation pre-vaccines).”
[https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/11/29/multimedia/29ambriefing-vaccine/29ambriefing-vaccine-articleLarge-v2.jpg]
Administering a vaccine in Pretoria, South Africa.Phill Magakoe/Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images
Absent new evidence, the rational assumption is that Covid is likely to remain
overwhelmingly mild among the vaccinated (unless their health is already
precarious<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/briefing/covid-age-risk-infection-vaccine.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>).
For most vaccinated people, Covid probably presents less risk than some
everyday
activities<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/23/briefing/us-covid-surge-thanksgiving.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>.
On “Meet the Press” yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci emphasized the continuing
power of vaccination, even against variants. “It may not be as good in
protecting against initial infection,” Fauci said, “but it has a very important
impact on diminishing the likelihood that you’re going to get a severe outcome
from it.”
Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist, made a similar point in her Substack
newsletter<https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/about?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>
this weekend:
Do not take Omicron lightly, but don’t abandon hope either. Our immune systems
are incredible.
None of this changes what you can to do right now: Ventilate spaces. Use masks.
Test if you have symptoms. Isolate if positive. Get vaccinated. Get boosted.
Government leaders can take an additional step, though: Improve global vaccine
distribution. Variants are more likely to emerge in places with low vaccination
rates, and less than 10 percent of people are vaccinated in many parts of
Africa. (Look up the rate for any
country<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>.)
This weekend, Andy Slavitt, a former Covid adviser to President Biden, called
for<https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/1464647078236221444?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>
“the mass shipment of hundreds of millions of vaccines” to southern Africa.
More on Omicron
* South Africa — one of the early places where Omicron was detected — has
had enough Covid vaccines to inoculate much of the population. But only 35
percent of adults are fully vaccinated, partly because of mistrust in the
medical system stemming from the AIDS epidemic, Zeynep Tufekci, a Times
columnist,
writes<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/opinion/covid-omicron-travel-ban-testing.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>.
* Researchers are testing how the vaccines respond to the
variant<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/health/covid-omicron-vaccines-immunity.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>
and could have results in a few weeks.
* Japan, Israel and Morocco have closed their borders to foreign
travelers<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/world/middleeast/israel-morocco-travel-bans-omicron.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20211129>.
