It is easy to look at the latest data on the spread of the Omicron variant and despair. Certainly infections appear to be multiplying at a rate far in excess of the Delta variant, which emerged for the first time a year ago. Just two weeks after it was first identified, Omicron case numbers are doubling every two to three days. It is already clear the new variant is far more contagious than Delta: at super-spreader events in Norway, Denmark, Spain and Britain between 35 and 78 per cent of those present subsequently tested positive. Worryingly it is also clear that part of the reason for this increased transmissibility is that Omicron has some capacity to evade existing vaccines. A year after the first vaccines were used, it can sometimes feel as if we’re going back to square one.
Nonetheless there are reasons to be confident that Britain and the world is in better shape to cope with an emerging fourth wave. The first is that admittedly preliminary data from South Africa, where the new strain was first identified, suggests it may be less virulent than Delta. Only 30 per cent of Covid-positive hospital patients in the South African city of Tshwane have severe illness. That compares with 70 per cent of those aged 50-69 and 90 per cent of over-80s during the Delta wave.
A second reason to be less gloomy is that while it seems true that vaccines provide less protection against Omicron than Delta, they do still provide some protection, particularly against severe disease. Again, preliminary data from South Africa indicates that, among the fully vaccinated, there is no increase in hospitalisation rates for those infected with Omicron. What’s more, experiments by BioNTech, the German company which developed the Pfizer vaccine, indicate that a booster jab provides similar levels of protection against Omicron as two jabs do against Delta. That’s welcome news for Britons, given that Pfizer is the main vaccine used for third jabs, and an urgent reason to get a booster jab.
Meanwhile, scientists at BioNTech have already tweaked their vaccine to attack Omicron so that if the new variant does prove to be both virulent as well as more transmissible, the first batches could be ready within 100 days. Indeed, the founders of BioNTech, Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, tell The Times that “the whole organisation is an Omicron workstream and is ready to shoot”. The entire company is now a “24/7” team, working to create the DNA templates and produce the RNA for initial testing in readiness for manufacturing. That is a far cry from the situation in early 2020, when it was unclear if there would be any vaccine at all.
That is no reason for complacency. The government was right this week to introduce modest new restrictions in an attempt to slow the spread of Omicron, particularly while there is so much uncertainty about its severity. The risk is that even if it turns out to produce a milder illness in most people, the speed of transmission means that by the law of large numbers, enough people could soon be sick enough to need hospital treatment in the coming weeks to overwhelm the NHS.
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That is why it is also sensible to be considering a Plan C, should the present restrictions, including a recommendation to work from home and increased mask-wearing in public places, prove insufficient. Yet it is also clear there is a limit to how much more can be gained from such measures. An absolute priority must be to keep schools open, along with hospitality, arts and leisure businesses. There is no public appetite, indeed an abhorrence, for another lockdown. Instead policy should be targeted at the hardcore of vaccine refuseniks who are most vulnerable to Omicron and make up many of those clogging up intensive care units in hospitals. If that means denying them access to public spaces, alongside the nightclubs and large venues announced this week, that might be a sufficient incentive for them to do the right thing.
