Could Omicron save us from COVID?

8 Dec, 2021 01:24 from Russia Today..RT shared with thanks Global Look Press / Pavlo Gonchar David Haggith 

If this new variant proves to be as mild as initial reports suggest, it could actually help us on our way to herd immunity if it were allowed to spread.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is not known for a tendency to understate the risks of COVID-19, has said the Omicron variant may not be all that bad:

 “Though it’s too early to really make any definitive statements about it, thus far it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it … Thus far, the signals are a bit encouraging.”

While Fauci also says the new variant’s mutations appear to have made it more capable of infecting people, that may not be a bad thing if it shows itself to be much less destructive. In fact, some studies and observations show it could prove to be what some would call a godsend.

That is because those who get the new strain could gain naturally enhanced immunity to all strains. While the mRNA vaccines only build immunological recognition of the spike protein that has become significantly mutated in Omicron, potentially rendering the vaccines less effective, contracting the Omicron variant may result in immunity that broadly recognizes many other aspects of the COVID virus (SARS-CoV-2) for which the mRNA vaccines do not program the body to be on alert.

Dr Angelique Coetzee, chairwoman of the South African Medical Association, criticized the West’s “extreme” response to her announcement of the new variant’s emergence in South Africa: “I have seen a lot over my medical career, but nothing has prepared me for the extraordinary global reaction that met my announcement … This version of the virus had been circulating in southern Africa for some time … Let me be clear: nothing I have seen about this new variant warrants the extreme action the UK government has taken in response to it. No one here in South Africa is known to have been hospitalized with the Omicron variant, nor is anyone here believed to have fallen seriously ill with it.”

Coetzee notes that all Omicron cases she has seen in South Africa have been mild. If South Africa’s experience with Omicron turns out to be typical, then the illness it delivers will be no worse than the flu, but the protection it delivers against more vile forms of COVID may prove to be as good as the immunity any form of COVID provides.

“If, as some evidence suggests, Omicron turns out to be a fast-spreading virus with mostly mild symptoms for the majority of the people who catch it, that would be a useful step on the road to herd immunity,” says Coetzee.