Here We Go Again

29 November 2021

 

Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Omicron Variant Emerges in South Africa

 

The latest variant of the virus that causes Covid-19, named Omicron, grabbed headlines last week as the World Health Organization called it a variant of concern. The variant has several mutations of the protein spike the virus uses to invade host cells. The current batches of vaccine act on the protein spike so these mutations may render the vaccines less effective. The question for the near term is whether it is more virulent than the delta variant and whether it is more transmissible. Longer term, the issue is whether the human race can figure out how to vaccinate everybody on the planet. Until that happens, variants are going to arise. Some could be much worse than what the world has seen so far.

Full marks to the scientists in South Africa who identified the variant and dashed out the news so that action against this variant could begin. The New York Times reports, "In just 36 hours from the first signs of trouble in South Africa on Tuesday, researchers analyzed samples from 100 infected patients, collated the data and alerted the world," said Tulio de Oliveira, a geneticist at the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine in Durban.

"Within an hour of the first alarm, scientists in South Africa also rushed to test coronavirus vaccines against the new variant. Now, dozens of teams worldwide -- including researchers at Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna -- have joined the chase."

They will spend the next couple of weeks determining how fast the virus can spread and how effective the current vaccines are against it. They are likely to find that it spreads as easily or even more easily than the delta variant. They are also going to discover, one expects, that that vaccines currently used are “not as effective as they are against other variants. It may require the biochemists refine their vaccines, and everyone may need another shot.

The good news there is that the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) were built on a platform that allows for rapid alteration. Pfizer’s scientists "can adapt the current vaccine within six weeks and ship initial batches within 100 days in the event of an escape variant" that eludes the immune system, said Jerica Pitts, a spokeswoman for Pfizer.

That bad news is that a new variant could do a lot of damage in 100 days, and shipping the vaccine is not the same as having it administered. That could take another 100 days easily, just to get to the people who have already had their shots.

Yet as Dr. David Chokshi, Health Commissioner for New York City, has said in public service announcements, "first doses are more important than third doses." Getting one shot into 7 billion humans would be more effective than fully vaccinating a couple billion. Vaccination inequality has brought about the conditions for new variants to breed. Every unvaccinated human is a potential petry dish for the virus to grow and mutate.

The NY Times also reports, "Full vaccination rates in the United States, France and China stand at 60 percent, 70 percent and 77 percent, respectively. Compare that to only 6 percent for Africa's 1.2 billion people." It is not surprise, therefore, that the omicron variant showed up in South Africa first.

The pattern that lies ahead without greater effort to vaccinate everyone and not just the rich nations is a depressingly repetitive one. Variant arises, vaccines are tweaked and administered, but many go without vaccination, and new variants arise to repeat the cycle.

The time has come to give up on the vaccine resistant and hesitant in the rich world and start shipping vaccines to the poorer nations where it is needed more. It is also time to boost production by whatever means are possible.

© Copyright 2021 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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