Why so much concern about Omicron?

[HJ40]

Don't get me wrong, I've been very concerned throughout about all things Covid, but people seem to be saying this makes you less ill, so why such a significant reaction?

Not trying to be goady, genuinely trying to learn as I can't work it out.

Unless those “people” are WHO scientists then they are -at best- guessing. No one knows what the impact will be. What they do know is that the mutations to the spike protein might mean this version evades vaccinations which have been designed to impact the spike protein in a different format. It will be a few weeks before scientists know what the impact will be. What we can do now is take all precautions just in case

Thank you - what I should have said instead of people was 'the news'; I've been reading articles not just talking to Jenny next door

Well I’ve been reading and watching the news too and the jury is most definitely out

From what I have read it seems there are fears about it but nothing as yet has been realised. It is just a waiting game.

@HJ40

Don't get me wrong, I've been very concerned throughout about all things Covid, but people seem to be saying this makes you less ill, so why such a significant reaction?

Not trying to be goady, genuinely trying to learn as I can't work it out.

You could have googled why is omicron an issue and got your answers in the time it took you to put up this thread.

OP there is one article/interview around that has been taken wildly put of context and spread around so much people seem to take it as gospel. It's an SA doctor talking about a handful of young, healthy patients for whom she observed the variant to have mild effects on. Even she said she had no idea of the effects on older or vulnerable people. There is evidence of exponential growth in hospitalisations in the epicentre. Apart from that, no one really knows, so it's all about taking precautions. Better safe than sorry, and all that. Better than responding much too late, as we did with Delta. Hopefully it will turn out to be a lot milder but there's just no evidence for this yet. We'll know more in a few weeks.

Even if it's milder, if it is more transmissible and escapes immunity from vaccination and previous infection, then a lot of people (including the elderly and more vulnerable who are generally affected badly) could get ill at the same time. It's not really a worry for each of us personally as much as it could be a public health crisis if hospitals get overwhelmed again with lots of covid patients at a time they are much, much busier with other work than at any point in the pandemic so far. And then of course on a global level, many countries don't even have the defences we have with vaccination and available treatments so could get hit very hard.

Because we undereacted to Delta and we definitely don't want to do that again. If it's not so bad then fantastic, but why take the risk?

It’s because there’s a lot we don’t know about how Omicron behaves and the only thing we can really do is wait and observe, it could go either way.

What we do know is mostly about the biological make up of the variant itself and this is concerning. It has a lot of mutations and some of those include ones that we already know increase transmissibility and a high number of those mutations on the spike protein which is what all of our currently available vaccines are based on so the risk their effectiveness will be diminished is very high. Vaccines replace a lot of the mitigations we practised prior to their use so if it does evade vaccines we’re potentially back to those methods of infection control if it proves as dangerous as previous variants.

Basically there are still a lot of question marks making up its wiki page.

People are moaning that they've brought in restrictions so quickly when they don't really know much about this variant but then people moaned that they didn't act soon enough while waiting to find out more about the previous variants.

Even if it's milder, if it is more transmissible and escapes immunity from vaccination and previous infection, then a lot of people (including the elderly and more vulnerable who are generally affected badly) could get ill at the same time.

Well repeatedly vaccinating everyone with ineffective vaccines isn't going to change that. We all know the only thing that actually reduces transmission is locking everyone up. The soaring case rates since the end of lockdown despite high vaccine coverage tells us as much. It would appear vaccines alone aren't going to get us out of this, well not unless they come up with better ones soon.

You could have googled why is omicron an issue and got your answers in the time it took you to put up this thread.

I'm fed up with this attitude. This is a discussion forum. People are free to ask whatever questions they like. Why don't we all just Google everything and let Mumsnet become redundant?

I don’t know but we all need to consider how long we can continue panicking and stopping travel every time a new variant crops up (and it will….like flu)

@Toty but case rates are not important with mild illness. It’s hospitalisations that are key - the whole point of this country’s approach is to prevent a collapse of the healthcare system. The brains need time to assess whether and to what extent this variant will impact the health service

@HJ40

Don't get me wrong, I've been very concerned throughout about all things Covid, but people seem to be saying this makes you less ill, so why such a significant reaction?

Not trying to be goady, genuinely trying to learn as I can't work it out.

The concern is because the mutations mean it is very transmissible and potentially capable of evading the vaccines. There is no evidence to date on how severe the effects are as most who have been infected were young and so while they had mild illness, they would also have been likely to have had mild illness with delta. We also don't know yet whether it will beat delta in competition for infection. Delta became dominant because of its virility. Omicron may or may not dominate.

@Imgonnabewarmthiswinter

People are moaning that they've brought in restrictions so quickly when they don't really know much about this variant but then people moaned that they didn't act soon enough while waiting to find out more about the previous variants.

We do love a moan though, it is pretty much the National sport

You could have googled why is omicron an issue and got your answers in the time it took you to put up this thread.

Or maybe the OP wanted to discuss it on a discussion forum.

I think that a doctor’s perception of a ‘mild’ illness is probably different to ours.
Healthcare, whether public or private, is not free in South Africa thus it seems unlikely that healthy, young men would consult a doctor with a cold or mild case of flu,
Possibly the doctor used ‘mild’ to mean not requiring hospital admission,

Thank you almost everyone, some very helpful perspectives.

One thing which is striking is how so much of the talk is it's impact after vaccination. There were some pertinent reminders in posts that many countries have much lower vaccination levels. It's timely to be reminded we are in a fortunate position. Minimising the spread really is therefore for a greater good, isn't it.

I think you’re right @HJ40

@WouldBeGood

I think you’re right *@HJ40*

Those sort of headlines are very misleading. This is the WHO document.

Cases reported thus far have tended to be mild but all the medical officers who have stated that, have also said that the demographic of those infected are likely to get milder doses with delta, alpha etc too. So basically, nobody yet knows if it will be any milder than delta. It would be brilliant if it was really mild and much more contagious than delta but we have no idea.

There is currently no evidence that it is vaccine resistant but equally, we don't know if it is more resistant than delta. It is likely the vaccines will provide some level of protection but the extent is unknown. According to this the indications are that the vaccines will be less effective but it will take a couple of weeks to assess this.

Basically, there is a new variant. It appears to be extremely contagious. We need more data to understand how severe it is and how well the vaccines work on it.

As others have said, the concern is likely (probably partial) vaccine evasion.

We don’t know whether it’s milder than delta or not. We don’t know whether it’s more transmissible than delta or not.

This mutation itself is milder in younger unvaccinated populations that (probably) already caught the delta and / or alpha varients, the facts from South Africa support it, but other countries have much older and vaccinated populations and this is where the unknown is.

@echt - just wanted to comment about saying OP could have googled in the time it took.... fair point, but don't you sometimes feel that these type of forums allow you to have a bit of a 'conversation'? It's quite nice to get a range of views and feel like you've interacted with real people, or it is for me anyway. I'm just saying, not moaning, criticising or anything like that

If you have a pcr test and it's positive do they tell you it's a particular strain/ variant? If not how do you know?