Virus of the week: Omicron
Hooray, the endemic is almost here!
By Wolfram Weimer
01/18/2022 10:26 am
The omicron wave is powerful, but surprisingly harmless. Spain, Great Britain, Denmark and Switzerland already want to treat the virus like flu. Now the two leading virologists in Germany and the USA are also signaling that we could be at a fortunate turning point: the pandemic is probably coming to an end.
The infection numbers are not only high, they are enormous. The World Health Organization reported 18.74 million newly infected people worldwide for the past week – twice as many as at the turn of the year and four times as many as in the weeks of Advent. With the omicron variant of the corona virus, the numbers are exploding, and in many countries at once. At the same time, hospital admissions remain moderate even in the hardest-hit countries. So moderate that country after country is exiting political disaster mode.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced that he would treat Corona like the flu from now on – as a recurring normal disease. The British government follows the strategy of “influenza” as does Denmark. In Switzerland, the Minister of Health, Alain Berset, also announced that Omikron, especially for vaccinated people, only “like a cold or the fluthat you can have in winter”.
Virologists from several countries declare that we are witnessing the transition from pandemic to endemic. Endemic means that a virus has arrived permanently, but no longer occurs in such massive waves and heaps. The two most prominent virologists in the USA and Germany also side with the endemic optimists. Anthony Fauci in the USA and Christian Drosten in this country had appeared publicly for two years as particularly cautious admonishers. Both have drawn a lot of criticism for this, but as a rule their warnings were correct.
But now Drosten and Fauci are also giving real hope for the first time. As with the annual flu waves, the world will have to learn to live with the corona virus. The pathogen cannot be eradicated. “Using the transmission’s exceptional and unprecedented effectiveness, Omicron will ultimately find almost anyone,” Fauci said. Vaccinated people would also be infected, but most of them would survive without any problems. According to Fauci, in the future it will be a matter of finding a normal life with the virus, as with the flu. “If you look at the history of infectious diseases, we’ve only eradicated one infectious disease, and that’s smallpox,” Fauci said at a virtual roundtable at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Population retains immunity
Christian Drosten also sees a “chance” in the milder omicron variant and gives hope for a life like before the pandemic. While Alpha and Delta were still “fitness leaps” of the virus, allowing them to better adapt to humans, Omicron is an immune escape variant. “This is a reaction to the developing population immunity,” said Drosten. Like Fauci, Drosten also says that sooner or later everyone will have to become infected with Sars-CoV-2. “Yes, we have to get into this channel, there is no alternative.” The population immunity in adults is developing in a clear direction: “The population builds immunity and keeps it.” Germany is now “in the process” of soon being able to declare the pandemic over and to declare the endemic phase.
Other virologists, such as the Bonn researcher Hendrik Streeck or Klaus Stöhr, also see the endemic coming and are optimistic. The chief scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO), Soumya Swaminathan, welcomes it when governments are already preparing for the transition of the corona pandemic into an endemic phase. “We expect that an immense number of people in the world will be infected with omicron and there will be cross-immunization to other variants.” That is encouraging. In 2022 there will be many millions of people in the world with better immunization protection – “because of the vaccinations and unfortunately because of the infections”.
This fundamental reassessment of the pandemic has two immediate consequences for politics. On the one hand, the mandatory vaccination that has been discussed is becoming less likely every day because natural mass immunization is taking place and at the same time the collective health threat is rapidly disappearing. In any case, Drosten thinks: “In the long term, we cannot maintain the immune protection of the entire population with a booster vaccination every few months.”
Risk becomes calculable
On the other hand, the governments will be able to end the policy of the permanent state of emergency. The risk of the disease can now be calculated and no longer legitimizes a far-reaching prohibition policy. Even at the prime ministers’ conference on January 24th, despite the high number of infections, loosening rather than tightening of the measures are up for debate.
Even the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder, who has been particularly strict so far, wants to take a “broader approach” to corona policy in the future. ‘Team caution’ alone is no longer enough,” says Söder. He was of the opinion that nationwide talks should be held with the Bundesliga about letting spectators back into the stadiums. In Bavaria, every second place at cultural events should be allowed to be occupied again in the medium term. When asked whether “we will ever live like before the pandemic again,” Christian Drosten says encouragingly: “Yes, absolutely. I’m absolutely sure of that.” Possibly soon.