Omicron is 6 Months Old

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Omicron is just 6 months old. It appeared as an entirely new strain of the virus not being related to the Alpha or Delta variants of COVID-19. Some researchers believe it may have infected mice and the strain and new variants blossomed in the mouse population before jumping back to infect humans.

The good new is that Omicron is less virulent than Delta which it replaced. Though less virulent, so many people became infected with Omicron all at once during the January spike, that it ultimately resulted in more deaths than from Delta.

Perhaps the fact that so many people have been infected has helped build up immunity. The trouble is that the immunity from infection and vaccination eventually wanes.

There are a lot of cases out there right now. The exact number is impossible to tell since testing sites across the country have been shut down and those who are infected take at home tests which are not counted or they don’t test at all.

Hospitalizations right now are lower than at any other time during the pandemic. Human nature is to say I am done with COVID when there is a perceived lull in cases. We have been here before, many times. However future variants combined with waning immunity may result in the next wave being much worse than what we are experiencing right now. This virus is unpredictable.  Any forecasts done prior to January of 2022 would not have any idea about Omicron. It was a curve ball that came out of nowhere.

We can hope that Omicron continues to become less severe in the future, but hope is not a good foundation for public health policy. The White House has made statements that hint that the worst of the pandemic is behind us, but lets face it a pandemic isn’t great a president’s chances of re-election in mid term elections. On the other  hand the White House warned of 100 million possible cases this fall and winter if the COVID funding package from Congress was not approved. Welcome to the strange world of mixed messaging.

Don’t Tease the Tiger

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Dr. Gregory Poland, head of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group made a clear analogy of where we stand todaaaaaay with the pandemic, he said, Americans are teasing the tiger by letting their guard down. BA.2 is 50 to 60% more transmissible that Omicron, which was which was 50% more transmissible than Delta, which was 50% more transmissible than Alpha. Despite this Americans are going about life feeling COVID-19 is behind them because they are tired of it. The virus doesn’t care about how tired people are, it is not done with us.

Those who reject vaccines and masks will likely face a horrible future. 1 out of every 328 Americans has died from COVID. Somehow Americans have normalized this. By pretending the pandemic is over people are not only teasing the tiger they are taunting it.

America is experiencing about 30,000 new COVID infections a day, about 18,000 in the hospitals across the US, and about 800 deaths a day. Americans seem to have normalized this level of death and infection. Everyone is out having spring parties and mass gatherings.

The story has played out many times before with a series of markers that hint that a new variant may cause a new surge in cases. That is where we are right now. We are in a quiet valley and are likely to experience another surge in the weeks ahead with BA.2. Only 65% of Americans have gotten 2 doses of vaccine, of those, less than half have gotten a booster. With BA.2 rising in America the advice remains the same, continue to wear an N95 mask indoors, and wear it over your mouth AND nose. Get fully immunized and boosted. A second booster is being made available for people over 50 years old and I plan to get that ASAP. BA.2 is coming.

COVID Caught a Cold

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A gene sequence from the common cold virus has worked its way into the Omicron variant of COVID-19. This gene sequence was not in any of the previous mutations of the virus (Alpha, Beta, Delta).

This happened through a process known as switching. The COVID virus invaded a cell and at the same time a common cold virus invaded the same cell. The genes of the two viruses then get mixed up together. This new combination makes the virus more competitive and virulent.

The virus became far more transmissible but perhaps less pathogenic. Patients in South Africa are nor requiring as much oxygen as was needed for patients suffering from Delta.

Omicron is evading vaccines and people who have been infected in the past are being re-infected. Pfizer-BioNTech,  has announced that three doses of vaccine are needed to combat Omicron. Research has shown that a third vaccine shot increases antibodies by 25%. They did not say how long those antibodies last. The company is rushing to develop an Omicron specific version of the vaccine which should be available by March 2022.

Omicron is the most transmissible of all the variants of COVID-19 to date. It is 4 times more transmissible than Delta. It has now been detected in 57 countries. Those numbers change by the hour. It will dominate the world stage in several weeks time. We will all be exposed to this variant. Symptoms include, Body aches and pains, muscle pain, headache, tiredness (1 to 2 days), and a slight sore throat. People are not getting a severe cough, or runny nose. These symptoms are consistent with my everyday existence for the past 20 months. A loss of smell or taste is no longer a symptom with Omicron. The fact is that many people will not realize that they have COVID-19 with these symptoms. Most will not go to hospitals and will recover at home. It is important to note however that there has been an slight increase in hospitalizations in South Africa, but it has not been a huge spike consistent with the amazing exponential growth in infections.

Though Omicron looms in the near future, the fact is that Delta is causing a huge spike in hospitalizations and death in states like Michigan and Minnesota. Despite these rising cases and deaths, most Americans are done with the pandemic and have returned to pre-pandemic life styles. Thanksgiving travel rivaled pre-pandemic travel and cases that resulted from all that mingling are just now reaching their peak. People have let their guard down and the virus will take full advantage of that weakness.

Children are the new victims of the virus. 132,000 children have been reported with infections in the last week across the country. Children will be infected by the Omicron variant at an increased rate. Children need to be vaccinated and even boosted if they are eligible. In South Africa 80% of the patients admitted to hospitals and diagnosed with COVID were under the age of 50. This is a younger age profile than existed with the Delta surge.

Mu Detected in Local Sewage

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The Mu COVID-19 variant (B.1.621) has been detected in Altamonte Springs, Florida sewage. The virus is shed it in stool or urine. Tests are done on the waste water as a predictor for possible transmissions in a community.

The variant has also been found in 49 other states. As of Oct. 29, 2021 the Mu variant accounts for less than 1 percent of all COVID-19 infections in the U.S., according to the GISAID Initiative, which is an organization that promotes the rapid sharing of data from all influenza viruses and COVID-19. It is still the dominant strain of COVID-19 in Colombia, where it was originally found.

People did not consider Delta to be much of a concern when it came to the United States from India back in June. When a virus takes a foothold it grows at an exponential rate. By the time everyone realized it is a problem it is already too late.

Mu has mutations already in Delta ( B. 1.617. 2) but it also has mutations from Alpha (B.1.1.7), which was also known to be highly transmissible. A lab study pre-print suggests, that Mu is the most immune evasive virus we’ve seen in the pandemic. It could be able to evade the immunity provided by vaccines and prior infections. It has been listed as a a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization since August 30, 2021.

“Mu looks potentially good at immune evasion,” Danny Altmann, PhD, an immunologist at Imperial College London, told The Telegraph. “For my taste, it’s a stark reminder that this isn’t by any means over. On a planet of 4.4 million-plus new infections per week, there are new variants popping up all the time, and little reason to feel complacent.”