Omicron, at Variance with Expectations

"No one wants to imagine what the scenario would have looked like if Omicron was at the beginning of the pandemic, just ripping through the population."

"We probably would have seen mass deaths, we probably would have seen long-term care facilities get destroyed."

"Three doses of vaccine in someone as medically frail as an 80-year-old, a mild illness can still take that person over the edge."

Dr.Zain Chaglia, infectious-disease professor, McMaster University 

"It's got so many mutations in the business part of the sticky protein that starts the infection -- that spike protein -- that the antibodies couldn't see it."

"So it was sort of ducking around our immunity."

Earl Brown, virologist, professor emeritus, University of Ottawa

 

It seemed so mysteriously anomalous, so unexpected and bewildering, that a new strain of COVID-19, recognized as far more infectious, when it was first discovered in South Africa, and seemingly much less dangerous, would still be responsible as the sinister agent of a growing number of coronavirus-inspired deaths. After all, if the infection was less serious what might explain an explosion in death numbers? Bearing in mind that a vast number of Canadians have now been double-vaccinated against     COVID. And among the elderly the greater majority have received a third, booster-shot.

Yet the numbers of people in Canada dying as a result of having been infected by COVID-19, matches at the very least the first lethal wave of the coronavirus when it spiked in 2020 sweeping through a country that had no immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Yet a week ago the single-day death toll stood at 164. Who among those susceptible to the worst effects of the virus, might be succumbing to it? Given the presence of effective vaccines along with available useful treatments.

It is among the elderly that deaths occur largely, representing COVID's primary victims from its original emergence to the present time; that much has not changed at all. The contagious Omicron variant causes far greater numbers of infections than had previous waves done; the virus is still fatal for some, though the reality is that the rate of death among vaccinated Canadians is much lower than it had been thr0ughout previous surges.

However, the current state of the pandemic would have proven far more lethal in the absence of vaccines, along with immunity brought on as a result of past infections. Vaccines remain a powerful defence against serious illness even though they are not as effective in staving off Omicron infection as they had been with Delta. To the present, COVID has dispatched over 34,000 Canadians to an early death; about three-fold fewer per capita than in the United States, and two-and-a-half times lower than the United Kingdom. Seven times higher than the death toll seen in South Korea.

The daily death count rose and then rose again to 191 during the first COVID wave, according to Oxford University's Our World in Data. 82 percent of Canadians age five and older are fully vaccinated, while 37 percent have had three doses; higher rates seen in the most vulnerable age groups. Cases rose close to 60,000 daily recently representing over five times the highest volume seen during previous surges. Numbers that may be  higher since PCR-testing programs have been overwhelmed and no longer accept urgent requests for tests other than those in a specific category.

It is the greater spread of this Omicron variant that would have translated to much larger numbers of dead had people not been vaccinated. It is the sheer volume of infections resulting from Omicron's greater infectability that accounts for significant numbers of people dying; old and frail people who mount weaker immune responses to infection in general. Added to the fact that vaccines are less effective in the elderly.

Some treatments that had been effective in treating previous variants have been seen to fail against Omicron. Along with the fact that many of the promising monoclonal antibody drugs -- synthetic antibodies designed to fight particular viruses -- have proven to be far less effective against Omicron.

A long line of people wait to be tested for Covid-19 in New York City on December 22. With the rise of the omicron variant of the virus, testing to identify cases early has become more critical.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images