Omicron and the Black Seers

by: Jens Berger

[This article published on Dec 22, 2021 is translated from the German on the Internet, Omikron and the Black Seers (nachdenkseiten.de)

Although we don't know much about the new Omikron variant yet, the black seers are already outdoing each other with horror scenarios. The RKI pushed yesterday for "maximum contact restrictions", whatever that means. Chancellor Scholz and Health Minister Lauterbach were surprised and disagreed; only to announce a little later the same contact restrictions, this time also for vaccinated and convalescents. The old "Good Bull, Bad Bull" game. You know it. Omikron is here and now everything is different. This is astonishing, as the first data on the Omikron variant from South Africa, Great Britain and Scandinavia do not give any compelling cause for concern. On the contrary. Infections with Omikron seem to be milder and lead to severe courses only in rare exceptional cases, especially in vaccinated and convalescents. If you are sure anyway that next March everyone will either be vaccinated, recovered or died,such a variant should actually be good news. Or? By Jens Berger



How dangerous is Omikron?

That Germany of all countries would react with pragmatism to a new variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus could be ruled out anyway. Even when the then nameless variant was discovered in South Africa a month ago, the media reacted with the greatest possible panic, with which they once again infected politics. This also surprised the discoverer of the variant now christened "Omikron" by the WHO – in an interview, Dr. Angelique Coetzee reported that there are currently far fewer deaths in South Africa "despite" Omikron than during the Delta waves, and concluded that "if Omikron were really such a deadly variant, we would expect the numbers to skyrocket, but that just doesn't happen here." And the data proves Coetzee right. While South Africa had to report 306, 575 and 419 deaths per day at the peak of the first three waves (each in the seven-day average), at the peak of the Omikron wave there were only 46 and here it is not even clear how many of them are attributable to the still circulating delta variant. An upward swing of any kind cannot be read from the South African data.



Source: Worldometers

Incidentally, new infections in South Africa are already declining noticeably, and the "Omikron tsunami" did not occur. Why? Isn't it the case that Omikron spreads much faster than the previously dominant delta variant? That is indeed the case. And not because Omikron itself is now more aggressive or contagious, but because Omikron has the great advantage of infecting vaccinated people much more easily than the delta variant due to its mutations on the spike protein. However, this is no reason to panic either, as Omikron almost completely undermines the protection of vaccination against infection, but according to the available data, the protection against more severe disease courses still exists.

This phenomenon can be observed well in a country where the vaccination rate is significantly higher than in South Africa and which, unlike e.B. Germany, is also able to collect and publish useful data on the pandemic – Great Britain. There, Omikron spread early and quickly. By last weekend, the number of Omikron cases confirmed by sequencing there had totaled almost 50,000.Currently, the UK reports around 90,000 new infections every day, the majority of which are probably due to the Omikron variant. In the media, there is talk of a disaster and a collapsing health system. But these reports cannot be verified by hard numbers. On the contrary. While new infections have indeed doubled within a month, there is not even a small upward trend in hospital admissions.



Hospitalisations related to Covid

19 Source: UK Department of Health

In terms of deaths, the trend in the UK is even pointing downwards.



Deaths related to Covid 19

Source: UK Department of Health

By way of comparison, the UK currently reports 91,743 new infections, around three times as high as Germany (37,854 on a seven-day average). Although the UK reports almost three times as many infected people, the number of British deaths (97 in the seven-day average) is around a quarter of German deaths (378 in the seven-day average). At 919, the number of daily hospitalizations is also many times lower than the German figure of 4,136. The situation is similar in intensive care units, where the British figure of 879 Covid-19 intensive care patients also accounts for only around a quarter of the German figure of 4,582.

This observation is almost a mirror image of the other countries comparable to Germany, which are repeatedly mentioned in connection with the Omikron variant. In Norway and Denmark, too, the number of new infections is rising rapidly, but without any simultaneous increase in hospitalizations or even deaths.

Now, one could speculate a lot about the reasons for these numbers, which are certainly counterintuitive to German media consumers. What is true is that new infections are a variable that has a time lead before hospitalizations and even more so deaths. However, in South Africa and the United Kingdom, the Omikron variant has been in circulation for a full month, and even there, there is not even a hint that it could have a negative impact on severe courses. It is also true that the majority of infections affect the age group between 20 and 40, and here it is mainly socially active members who are affected, the vast majority of whom are considered to be either vaccinated or recovered and therefore have no great risk of a severe course of the disease anyway. What consequences Omikron will have for non-vaccinated members of the risk groups cannot be said seriously at present due to the lack of usable data. However, what can be said with great certainty on the basis of the available data is that Omikron is not a "killer virus" and that the panic that has already been stirred up again, especially in Germany, is counterfactual, i.e. cannot be explained by the available data.

How should we assess the political reactions?

In Germany, the focus is once again on booster vaccinations. Whether they have any influence on Omikron is uncertain. What is certain, however, is that the "saving" effect of booster vaccinations is grossly overestimated. Again, it helps to look at probably the only country capable of collecting and publishing reasonable data - Great Britain. Data there, based on about 170,000 test results, show that double vaccination with the mRNA vaccines prevalent in Germany provides 93.1% protection against severe disease.



Source: UK Department of Health

Boosting can increase this to 98.8%, but this is unlikely to be such a decisive additional benefit for all people who do not belong to a high-risk group and who do not have a high individual risk of disease anyway, that it would justify the massive campaign for boosters in all age groups.

Germany's second solution is to now go all out to vaccinate children as well. Here, however, the data from Great Britain show that it is precisely the children and adolescents - who are vaccinated only to a very small extent there as well - who play almost no role at all in new infections with the Omikron variant.



Source: Alex Selby

This is not particularly surprising, since the big difference between Omikron and Delta is the higher infection rate of Omikron among the vaccinated. Vaccinating the previously unvaccinated may reduce their individual risk of disease, but it does not reduce the incidence of Omicron. This is also evident from the British data, where the peak has apparently already been passed.

Another scenario

Even if hope is in vain, it would be nice to look at the data with a little more pragmatism and, above all, to give up the miserable pessimism. If one did not approach the matter with excessive pessimism, but with a little optimism, a completely different scenario would open up. In this context, omicron discoverer Angelique Coetzee even speaks of a missed opportunity: "If we overreact, we run the risk of missing out on the advantages of a variant that could be a friend rather than an enemy." What she means by this is well worth considering.

After all, new variants don't have to be a threat; they can even be a salvation. This would be the case if a variant emerges that is highly infectious but at the same time carries less severe disease. Finally, in addition to Sars-CoV-2, there are other types of corona virus that are widely distributed and very rarely involve the most severe courses of disease. A SARS-CoV-2 variant that is less pathogenic, i.e. causes less severe courses of disease, and is so contagious that it displaces the more dangerous variants, would fit in seamlessly. The great advantage is that such a variant would ideally immunize the human organism and thus offer protection against later, perhaps more dangerous variants. It would thus be a kind of natural vaccination with a highly infectious live vaccine. Is this idea naive? Not at all. Many virologists and immunologists themselves are hoping for a "messiah virus", i.e. a "savior virus". If this were to come at Christmas, it would be something almost metaphysical.

Whether Omikron can be such a "savior virus" is, however, highly speculative. We still know too little about it - especially about the effect on unvaccinated members of the risk groups. However, the hope for this positive "alternative scenario" is by no means more unrealistic than the fear of the "killer mutant". But hope is not in season at the moment. The doomsayers determine the program and the policy. And unfortunately, the "Festival of Hope" just around the corner won't change that.