Ruminations: A Tsunami of Omicron

"We just can't have everybody just being taken out of circulation because they just happen to be at a particular place at a particular time."
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison

"Delta and Omicron are now twin threats driving up cases to record numbers, leading to spikes in hospitalization and deaths."
"I am highly concerned that Omicron, being highly transmissible and spreading at the same time as Delta, is leading to a tsunami of cases."
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization

People wait outside a COVID-19 testing centre, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Manchester, Britain, December 28 , 2021. REUTERS/Phil Noble

Britain, Italy, Spain Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Malta have all registered record numbers of new cases. In the United States, the seven-day average of new daily cases hit its own record of 258,312, a Reuters tally confirmed...as opposed to the previous peak last January when 250,141 cases were registered. The saving grace is that surge aside, deaths and hospitalizations remain comparatively low, CDC director Dr.Rochelle Walensky pointed out.

Over the past seven-day period, according to Reuters data, global COVID-19 infections reached record highs as the Omicron variant sped uncontrollably through populations, leaving governments to wrestle with how they might conceivably contain the spread, and at the same time sparing fragile economies from paralysis.

On average every day worldwide, between December 22 and 28, close to 900,000 cases were registered, many countries posting new all-time highs in a previous 24-hour period. Among them the United States, Australia and many European countries, as well as Bolivia. Studies suggest Omicron is less deadly than previous variants yet even so, huge numbers of positive tests equate with some countries' hospitals soon becoming overwhelmed and at the same time businesses may struggle to carry on, with workers quarantining.

A situation that has led some governments to consider shortening the period of isolation for people who test COVID-positive, or have been exposed to someone who is positive, through sheer fear of the impact on the economy resulting from too many people being kept at home. Spain announced a reduction of their quarantine period for those testing positive to seven days from the current ten.

Italy is planning to relax isolation rules for people coming into close contact with infected people. U.S. health authorities released new guidelines this week that would shorten the isolation period for people with confirmed infection to five days from ten, confined to people who are asymptomatic. Olivier Veran, French health minister, informed lawmakers that his country was being overcome by a "dizzying" rise in cases where 208,000 have been reported in the space of a day -- representing a national and European record.

People wearing protective masks queue for booster injections of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine as the pandemic continues, at a vaccination centre at the University of Malta in Tal-Qroqq, Malta December 29, 2021. Reuters

An increase of 60 percent over the previous week was seen in the United States where current seven-day daily average cases sit at close to 240,400, while the hospitalization rate for the same period is up 14 percent to about 9,000 per day over the same period, with deaths about seven percent, to 1,100 daily, given early data from Britain, South Africa and Denmark. The risk of hospitalization from Omicron is lower than from Delta according to the WHO.

Mike Ryan, the WHO top emergencies expert stated it to be too premature to draw definitive conclusions since Omicron so far was in circulation largely among younger, less vulnerable age groups. 182,027 COVID cases were reported in Britain, a new record exceeding the previous highest figure registered by fully 50,000, according to government statistics. Record cases were reported in Ireland as well, with over 16,000 new infections.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, however, has been persuaded not to bring in new restrictions in England to limit the Omicron spread, now accounting for 90 percent of all community infections. Almost 18,300 new cases have been registered in Australia, eclipsing the previous high of around 13,300. Demand for free testing kits in Spain from the Madrid regional government has far outstripped supply, with long queues forming outside pharmacies.

The economic impact of huge numbers of people being forced into self-isolation as a result of having had contact with an infected person has governments increasingly concerned. Spain and Italy took steps to relax some isolation rules, but China is adamant about its policy of zero tolerance to the extent that it has placed the 13-million people in Xian, capital of central Shaanxi province, under rigid lockdown for a seventh day, where people cannot leave their homes even to shop for food.