Brace for more variants, Omicron NOT the last COVID-19 strain, WHO and Dr Fauci warn the world on pandemic course

The World Health Organization (WHO), on Tuesday, sounded an alert that new variants of the COVID-19 virus will keep emerging and that the Omicron variant is not going to be the last variant we see of the SARS-CoV-2 causing novel coronavirus.

“This pandemic is nowhere near over and with the incredible growth of Omicron globally, new variants are likely to emerge; which is why tracking and assessment remain critical,” the United Nations health agency’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a meeting addressing reporters from the WHO headquarters in Geneva.

New variants may emerge, Omicron not the last strain: WHO

The WHO said the pandemic will not end as the omicron variant subsidies in some countries, warning the high levels of infection around the world will likely lead to new variants as the virus mutates. “We have been able to track new variants like Omicron and this virus’ evolution in real-time, thanks to the efforts of thousands of scientists and experts around the world. More than 7 million whole genome sequences from 180 countries have now been submitted to GISAID which had initially been set up to track flu. 

Make no mistakes, Omicron is not a mild variant:
The WHO chief cautioned against the narrative that the highly-contagious Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is mild and risk-free. They warned that the false narrative that the coronavirus pandemic is over will cause immense harm to humanity. “Omicron may be less severe on an average, but the narrative that it is a mild disease is misleading. (This approach) hurts the overall response and costs more lives. Make no mistakes, Omicron is causing hospitalisations and deaths. And even the less severe cases are inundating health facilities… New information, new formulations of vaccines are being developed and assessed for how they perform against Omicron and other strains,” the WHO chief added.

“We’re hearing a lot of people suggest that omicron is the last variant, that it’s over after this. And that is not the case because this virus is circulating at a very intense level around the world,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, said during the coronavirus update in Geneva. She urged the governments the world over to invest more in surveillance systems so that the virus is contained at least to some extent. Van Kerkhove said now is not the time to relax public health measures, such as curtailing mask-wearing and physical distancing. Only strengthening these measures could help head off future waves of infection as new variants emerge, she warned.

Don’t abandon the science: WHO experts to Govts and people
“If we don’t do this now, we will move on to the next crisis,” Van Kerkhove said. “And we need to end the crisis that we are currently in and we can do that at the present time. So don’t abandon the science. Don’t abandon the strategies that are working, that are keeping us and our loved ones safe,” she said.

COVID-19 experts speak on Radio Davos:

Meanwhile, Dr Anthony Fauci — who is the US’ top infectious disease expert, has also warned that the Omicron variant may not spell the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease, told the Davos Agenda virtual event on Monday that ‘natural vaccination’ – or immunity via the previous infection – might not be as effective as some believe it will be. “It is an open question as to whether or not Omicron is going to be the live virus vaccination that everyone is hoping for,” Dr Anthony Fauci, who advises the US president on COVID-19, issued a cautious assessment while speaking on Radio Davos. 

When I talk about the pandemic, I put it into five phases: the truly pandemic phase where the whole world is really very negatively impacted as we are right now. Then there’s that deceleration of the pandemic. Then there’s control. There’s elimination and eradication. I think if you look at the history of infectious diseases, we’ve only eradicated one infectious disease in man, that’s smallpox. That’s not going to happen with this virus,” Dr Fauci said on the radio conclave — an event moderated by Francine Lacqua of Bloomberg — the other experts were Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna, Annelies Wilder-Smith, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI). 

Universal Vaccine for all future strains?

Stephane Bancel, the CEO of Moderna admitted that the vaccines that are currently available were for the original strain. “They have not been adopted, that I’m aware of, to the Alpha or the Beta strain, at least ours was not,” the France-born American businessman said. But he also spoke of how though new variants could not be fended off well by just two doses, the third one – a booster did provide very strong protection against Omicron. Now Moderna is creating an Omicron-specific vaccine. CEPI CEO Richard Hatchett spoke about how “we don’t want to be in a position where we’re having to vaccinate everybody in the world every three or six months or even annually, ideally.” To Francine Lacqua’s query “there have been reports that actually say if you boost too much, then it’s counterproductive to the immune system. Richard, where are we on that?” Hatchett said, “I’m not aware of any data that strongly suggest that the administration of the third dose or the fourth dose in any way weakens the immune response.” 

Is there a danger of “Boosting too much”?

Dr Fauci seconded Richard Hatchett and said that “… there really is no evidence that if you boost… I mean, obviously, if you just overwhelm the immune system by just giving the person an antigen all the time, you get hyperactivity of immunity. But giving boosters at different times, there’s no evidence that that’s going to hinder it. One of the things that we’ve got to be careful of, and I really want to underscore what Richard said, is we really don’t want to get into the whack-a-mole approach towards every new variant where it comes up and you all of a sudden have to make a new booster against a particular thing because you’ll be chasing it forever.”

He said that is why scientists are looking at finding out what the mechanisms are that induces a response to a commonality among all of the different – real and potential – variants that we’re seeing and that can occur. 

Will a “Universal coronavirus vaccine” resolve the matter?

Dr Fauci said that before attempting to formulate a “Universal coronavirus vaccine”, they want to get a universal SARS-CoV-2 virus vaccine for all its possible variants. He also issued a warning that when you have a virus that has such a high degree of transmissibility, a very good vaccine may not necessarily prevent initial infection and may allow it to be very mild. But what you really want it to do is to prevent you from getting a significant systemic disease. That would be a very, very successful pan-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. 

Why the US is struggling to cope with COVID-19 cases:

Francine Lacqua of Bloomberg asked Dr Fauci why the US, a ‘first world’, a developed, and rich economy is struggling to contain COVID. Dr Fauci replied, “In the US, we have somewhat of fractured and disparate accessibility to healthcare in our nation.

“We have a great disparity. (We have ) … a very disturbing, I believe, to all of us as public health officials and scientists, such a degree of pushback against regular normal, easy to understand public health measures.

“Reluctance to wear masks. Reluctance to promote vaccination. Reluctance to do kinds of public health measures that really we know if we all pull together as a society, we would be much, much better off.

“I mean, even at its best, this is such a formidable virus in its ability to do the things it’s already done, with multiple waves and multiple surges and multiple variants, but you make the virus have an advantage when you don’t implement in a unified way all the very well-recognised public health measures, particularly the vaccines.

“And I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s so unfortunate for the entire world, but even for a rich country like the United States that supposedly was the best-prepared country for a pandemic. We are among a handful of the countries that have actually suffered the most. When you look now, 65 million cases and close to 900,000 deaths in our country, that is really, truly unfortunate and something that we would have hoped would have been avoided,” Dr Fauci lamented.