New offshoots of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 continue to proliferate worldwide. Image / CDC
New offshoots of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 continue to proliferate worldwide. Image / CDC
EDITORIAL
A year ago, the situation looked bleak indeed.
The Delta variant was seeping through the world-class fortifications of New Zealand’s Covid-19 precautions. In a last-ditch effort to slow the spread to vulnerable communities, Auckland remained under a level 3 lockdown, only a slight adjustment from the level 4 restrictionsimposed on the super city on August 17.
Then, about this time last year, an advisory panel of the World Health Organisation classified an alarming new Covid-19 variant first detected in South Africa as a highly transmissible virus of concern, naming it “Omicron” under its Greek letter system.
The variant, until then identified by the technical term B.1.1.529, boasted an increased risk of reinfection compared to other highly transmissible variants, indicating that infected people who recovered could be more susceptible to catching it again with Omicron.
The WHO suggested the variant could pose greater risks than the Delta variant, which was first detected in India and was ravaging worldwide at the time.
Early reports of the much more contagious nature of Omicron deepened concerns. Omicron could endure longer in the environment, with a survival time of 21 hours compared to 16.8 hours for Delta. It did appear Omicron was every bit as ominous as the name suggested.
But this variant came with a silver lining. A Kaiser Permanente study revealed that coronavirus infections caused by the Omicron variant had less severe outcomes and shorter hospital stays than those caused by Delta. In a spiky nutshell, Omicron wasn’t the killer that Delta was.
Better yet, the super-charged contagious nature of Omicron gave it superiority over Delta.
The symptoms were still debilitating. But, of the more-frequent symptoms, loss or altered sense of smell, sneezing, runny nose, brain fog, eye soreness, headache, fever, and dizziness were reported significantly more often during Delta prevalence, while a sore throat and hoarse voice significantly more often reported with Omicron.
There are still many unknowns. Omicron continues to re-emerge in slight variations and each has the potential to throw up further complications in evading immunity or increased transmissibility or even heightened severity of symptoms.
Our health officials are continuing to monitor new variants, and haven’t ruled out the option of scaling up health measures if needed.
Long Covid has become a general term to describe symptoms that continue or develop after the initial Covid-19 illness and cannot be explained by any other condition. People suffer a wide range of symptoms that can last more than four weeks or even months after infection. Sometimes the symptoms can even go away or come back again.
Despite the markedly different levels of freedom we enjoy compared with this time last year, Covid is not “over”. Four deaths last week were attributed to the virus.
It is foreseeable that the WHO will soon decide enough countries have managed to reduce their Covid-19 cases sufficiently — or, at the least, hospital admissions and deaths — to declare the pandemic officially over.
Wider economic and social impacts will be felt for years and, perhaps, generations to come.
