December 16, 2021

expert reaction to current UK situation with the Omicron variant

Here are some comments from scientists about the current Omicron variant situation in the UK in case useful.

Prof Polly Roy, Professor of Virology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:

“There is a prevailing view that Omicron represents a dramatically increased threat – but we don’t yet have all the evidence we need to know that.  Variants are a fact of life for RNA viruses but it is very unlikely they will evade an existing immune response to such a degree that protection against disease is wholly undermined.  While continued spread of the virus does run the risk in reaching those who are vulnerable or unvaccinated, particularly in the winter months, the increased risk to the majority vaccinated population is probably marginal.  Comments from Anthony Fauci and Pfizer also reinforce the point that while keeping up with your shots of the existing vaccine is good practice, lurching into precipitous social policies or change of vaccine are not.”

Comments sent out 15/12/2021:

Prof James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, and Professor of Structural Biology, University of Oxford, said:

“Omicron is now making its presence felt in the number of cases, unfortunately this is just the start.  Professor Whitty simply states the truth, numbers are going to get much bigger very quickly.

“Triple vaccination provides very strong protection against infection and thus viral spread.  Boosters take around one to two weeks to give their effect.  Speed is thus important.

“Previous infection alone confers very little immunity to infection with Omicron.  This was seen in South Africa.  First time infection with covid19 will kill a certain number of unvaccinated people, over 145,000 dead Britons prove this beyond doubt.  Many more are suffering from long covid19.  In our world of vaccines, there is no wider benefit in their deaths or suffering, just an awful heart breaking tragedy.  Quite simply, infection with covid19 is all pain for no gain with the added risk of death or life changing complication.  Vaccination is free, safe, effective, does not force you to isolate and has much much lower risk than infection.

“Double vaccination and/or previous infection do provide excellent protection against severe illness.  We have seen this with Delta in the UK.  This means the body is able to slow down the virus because it has seen it before.  Some of this is B cell (antibody) and some is T cell.  This is good news, immunity from double (and for many triple) vaccines and previous infection will greatly reduce the burden of severe disease.  For the majority it will be a mild disease.

“The wave of Omicron will cause less hospitalisations and deaths per 1000 infections than Delta did, simply because we have more vaccination (booster) now.

“South African data points to Omicron causing fewer hospitalisations and deaths per 1000 infections than previous waves – however it is early days and South Africa is crucially a younger country.

“The bad news is that Omicron can infect many more people per day in the UK than Delta has been able to.  This on its own will cause disruption as Professor Whitty said.

“If Omicron is four times less likely to cause severe disease than Delta due to population immunity (quite a big drop), then Omicron would have to cause four times the numbers infections as Delta to see the same number of severe illnesses.  At the current UK doubling rate for Omicron, over seven days the number of Omicron infections per day will increase by 8 fold.  An 8 fold would double the number of daily hospitalisations even if four times “milder”.

“Due the lag between infection, testing and hospitalisation, it won’t be until after Christmas until we have a robust measure of these ratios.  This will provide an opportunity for a lively fact free prediction market on the outcome.  I would note that only some of the so called lockdown sceptics have acknowledged that had their views prevailed last year, the death toll would have been much higher.

“If people reduce contact, isolate if infected (testing with lateral flow), improve indoor ventilation, wear masks properly and keep their distance the virus will spread more slowly.  This will give you or your loved one, more time to get the booster and benefit from it.  If we don’t, then we are left only with a hope; the hope that Omicron will cause many fewer severe cases per thousand infections than Delta.”

Prof Lawrence Young, Virologist and Professor of Molecular Oncology, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, said:

“We need much clearer messaging about other protective measures alongside the booster campaign. Faced with rapidly increasing levels of infection with the Omicron variant on the back of persistently high levels of delta infection, the only way to break the chains of transmission and prevent severe disease is to continue to expedite the booster campaign while also using other behavioural approaches such as more widespread use of face coverings, covid passes in crowded venues and, where possible, working from home. Limiting the size of gatherings is good advice. Whether this means mixing with no more than three households is debatable but the key message is to limit interactions as much as possible.

“We also need to take advantage of lateral flow tests (LFTs) – something we didn’t have a year ago. This provides a quick way of checking in real-time, without the inherent delays of PCR testing, whether or not you are infected and infectious. The mantra should be ‘flow before you go’ – we must encourage the responsible use of LFTs before people go out to mix with others. LFTs are also an important way for folk to ensure that they are safe to enjoy Christmas with their family and friends.”

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

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