Covid Not Finished Yet
By Albert B. Kelly
As I write this, fresh on the heels of a Thanksgiving holiday that felt as close to normal as we dare hope for these days, news coming out of South Africa is of the new Covid variant B.1.1.529 known as “Omicron”. It is a variant of concern, but at this point, the experts simply don’t know if it will be a variant “high consequence” but it’s starting to sound like it’s possible.
This new variant according to scientists, has 50 mutations overall with 30 of those mutations on the spike protein. This matters because most of the vaccines target the spike protein which is the battle front between vaccines and the virus. The spike protein is how the virus enters our cells, but it is also how the vaccines teach our immune systems to recognize and kill the virus before it gets too far in terms of making people sick.
You might ask why this news should sound alarm bells in our little corner of the world and the simple answer is because the world has gotten considerably smaller in the last several decades. By that, I mean that it only takes a handful of infected but asymptomatic people hopping on airplanes and landing in cities around the world to spread this thing far and wide.
If we know anything about our ability to track and surveil these viruses, it’s that what we actually know and what we can actually verify are generally several clicks behind what is happening on the ground. In the initial reports on this variant, we were told that there were only 59 confirmed cases in South Africa, Honk Kong, and Botswana as of the Thanksgiving weekend. With hundreds of people flying to and fro before the variant was identified, there is a fair chance that people with this new variant have already touched down in multiple countries.
If you’re looking for one large justification as to why people should get the vaccine, a good candidate might be the presence of B.1.1.529 aka “Omicron”. What I mean to say is that the longer the Covid virus circulates among large swaths of the unvaccinated, the more opportunities the virus has to mutate into all sorts of deadly versions. In the case of Covid, vaccines aren’t perfect, but perfection wasn’t the main thing- cutting off its longevity was and we may pay a high price for failing.
I hope I am wrong and I sincerely hope that what the scientists have labeled as B.1.1.529 is just a blip on the radar screen and that we can keep moving towards “normal” on this side of the pandemic. But this is no time to get lazy as far as protecting ourselves. It is a moment to continue doing the things we’ve been doing such a wearing masks, social distancing, and hand washing, but especially wearing masks while waiting to find out what “Omicron” has in store for us, if anything.
This is no small point because today, significant parts of the community have completely done away with masks. Whether it is because people have been vaccinated and feel as if they are fully protected or because they think Covid is overhyped and overblown; most of us walk around without masks. For the rest us, myself included, we’ll wear them under our nostrils or chins as if we get extra credit for trying.
I suppose the thing that can snap us back to a hard reality is that a mutated virus might easily be something that renders our current vaccines completely ineffective and should that happen, it will feel as if we’re back at the very beginning of this mess. One thing that could offer some small piece of good news is that certain vaccines such as Moderna and Pfizer could more easily lend themselves to being modified to deal with new viral threats, but there’s no guarantee and time is of the essence.
So for now in our small corner of humanity, I want to encourage everyone to be aware of what is happening in places we’re only vaguely aware of and not to underestimate how quickly or how deeply a new variant could arrive and impact our area; homes, schools, and workplaces. Until we know more, this might mean getting back to wearing masks in public places, avoiding large gatherings, vaccinations for the unvaccinated- basically being ready to do things we hoped would no longer be necessary.