I think it fair to say that I have never been a Covid optimist. Since February 2020 I have felt that those believing that Covid was just going to be a blip have been wrong.
So far whilst precise trajectories have, of course, been hard to predict my concern has been justified. Things have been persistently worse than the government has wished to portray, and its measures to address Covid related issues have always proved to be inadequate. Boosterism has always undermined any attempt to take measures to squash disease spread, ease pressure on the NHS or contain the disease by effective vaccination worldwide.
And so we come to Omicron. Do we have reason to be worried? Watch this and I suggest that we have.
“Let's hope it's a storm in a teacup… but it looks bad.”
Discussing the new Covid variant, @imperialcollege Prof @Daltmann10 says that if we don't take Omicron seriously “we could pay a price for years to come”
MORE: https://t.co/qW2WfXxQP4
#Newsnight | @FaisalIslam pic.twitter.com/rH8YnXytFF— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) November 26, 2021
I will leave it to the Covid experts to discuss the health consequences of that risk. This blog is largely on economics. Markets noticed the risk and priced it yesterday. These two headlines come from FT emails this morning:
The Guardian had this variation:
Of course markets can get their reactions wrong. It's also true that if only they had not been over-optimistic about Covid being over they would not need this adjustment.
I do not, of course, know what will happen. Omicron may be a storm in a tea cup. Danny Altmann clearly does not think so. From what I read it is not. In that case three things follow.
The first is that travel restrictions will not stop the spread of this variant.
The second is that only serious measures, including masks, ventilation, social distancing and maybe lockdowns are likely to achieve that. Vaccine variants are maybe 100 days away, and take much longer to roll out.
And third, the economy is not likely to be booming any time soon as a result.
In that case all those clamouring for interest rate rises should put their demands on hold. They are the last thing that we will need.
And all those who think that government spending can be brought under control, as Rishi Sunak would define it, should also think again. The likelihood that government intervention in the economy might be required again looks to be quite high to me at present, although all options are on the table right now.
And last of all, those who really think that it's all over had better think again. Until we take the obligation to vaccinate the world seriously this is a long way from happening.
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Agree. It looks bad, well worth watching this clip again.
Richard – UK govt has been considerably worse than ‘boosterism’ and a ‘wish to portray things as better than they are’. They have explicitly rejected their own experts advice in Sept 2020 to nip the next wave in the bud with a ciruit breaker lockdown – which could have saved tens of thousands of lives. They are the only W European country to dispense with all mitigations after July – again against advice – and costing thousands more lives than in France,, Germany, Spain, Italy etc. The have delayed vaccinating children and obstructed mitigation in schools – now the key source of new infections
The govt is obstructing international moves for patent waivers – which could have already enabled vaccine production and increased vaccination in poorer countries, which might have cut down the chance of this super variant emerging..
In other words they are knowingly creating conditions where people will die – in their own country, and elsewhere.
Agreed
I share your concern.
The big lesson we all learnt in 2020 was that a late reaction does not work.
However, people end up obsessing about other things – this theory and that. There’s a lot puerile nonsense out there to take up your time.
My big worry is a late reaction to this new variant – which I bet has already started to spread wider in a world that puts personal freedom before anything.
We are always going be behind the curve on these matters as long as this hyper-individualised world exists.
Richard,
You write that travel restrictions will not stop the spread of this variant.
I agree. However, has this always been your view? I got the impression you were previously arguing for elimination and with a similar approach to Australia, New Zealand, and some of the Asian countries like Taiwan and South Korea. They did a good job of slowing down the spread at a time when no vaccines were available, but, in the end, they all had to accept that elimination of all the variants of the virus wasn’t going to be possible. They had open up to a large extent and then rely on the effectiveness of a vaccine program.
I would also agree that we have to vaccinate the world. ‘We’ being the the wealthy parts of the world and not just the UK. It requires a concerted international effort led by the UN and WHO.
I am not sure what the argument I am meant to be replying to is
My suggestion is that as many measures to prevent spread as possible need be taken
Nothing works in isolation
The Covid variations that have been named by WHO are listed on several tables on:
http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/
It also lists what happened to them.
Don’t disagree with you…. but using the headline about the drop in stock prices makes me think
(1) Biggest fall since last June? That is only a few months ago so this is hardly a massive drop.
(2) Surely, Richard Murphy is not using the level of the stock market as a barometer of what is going on in the real world!
Also, what happened to variants Epsilon to Xi (ie all the letters between Delta and Omicron)? Or are epidemiologists not fluent in ancient Greek these days?
Sentiment matters Clive…animal spirits and all that….
Yes, I think that the Stock market is a good barometer of what people are thinking…. not not necessarily what is happening (otherwise, why did we get to such elevated levels?).
Now, a SERIOUS drop (25% +) ….. now THAT would be interesting.
Indeed…..
The WHO have skipped two variants – Nu and Xi (I guess because the former sounds like “new” and the latter a bit like the Chinese premier). But all of the other letters have been used.
For example, Alpha was the Kent variant; Beta was South Africa; Gamma was Brazil; and Delta was first detected in India. Lambda (Peru) and Mu (Colombia) are both still “variants of interest” but all of the others are no longer – Epsilon (US), Zeta (Brazil), Eta (UK. Nigeria). Theta (Philippines), Iota (US), Kappa (India).
Chapter and verse here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variants_of_SARS-CoV-2
It is going to be interesting to work out after the event (in a five to ten years, say) whose strategy was the best.
Thanks, useful.
However it is another instance where they should have consulted me, as the name is already taken. “O Micron” is how I normally address the French President, and “omicron” is his variant of neo-liberalism.
Given the alarming descriptions of the new vaiant, perhaps “omigod” would be a better label.
Just an idle thought. I am aware of beta and delta variants. Presumably the original was alpha? The latest variant is omicron, the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. Have there been 11 other variants that have been named but not deemed important?
I do not know
There have been many, many more than get names, I do know
I wonder if, rather like the many Marks of Spitfire, oony a certain number of COVID variants either appear in any numbers or turn out to be significant?
Yes
Cyndy: Alpha was the name given to the UK (or Kent) variant. Like this latest Omicron it included multiple changes from any previous version, thought to have arisen successively in a single immunocompromised patient.
I remember Beta was a previous variant identified in South Africa just under a year ago, which was honoured with a name because it included a change in the spike protein that could potentially allow it to evade immunity from previous versions. But it faded away, it didn’t spread fast enough to be a problem. Delta of course is the one first seen in India which is now the dominant strain. No idea what Gamma was, or the ones between Delta and Omicron.
The problem with any new variant is that scientists need to collect data anew to find out how fast it spreads, how likely it is to cause severe disease, and whether people are still adequately protected by immunity due to vaccination or previous infection with another variant. Its fairly rapid rise in South Africa suggest it spreads easily, and while we don’t know the answers to the other questions I agree with Richard that we need to be prepared for the worst and use all the measures available to reduce its spread.
Even if Omnicron proves benign, of course the pivotal issue is that the variant is underlining its character as an organism, to adopt new strategies to ensure its survival and success. This early life form pre-dating Homo sapiens by a couple of billion years is thus demonstrating a form of collective intelligence that has evaded the evolution of the Conservative Party. The inability of viruses to engage in nonsensical ideologies would seem, therefore, to be the key. The inability of the Conservative Party to engage in rational debate would seem to exclude this solution to our problems.
I have to agree
There are quite a lot of imponderables here. We don’t really know if Omicron is more infectious, whether it will “escape” vaccinations more than other variants do, or whether cases will be more or less severe (particularly in populations like ours, with more older people). Given the number of flights in the last couple of weeks and its rapid spread in Southern Africa, there are probably dozens of cases in the UK already.
Fortuitously, more by luck than judgement, the UK may be in a better position in some respects then other European countries. The AZ vaccine may have been initially less effective than Pfizer, with a lower antibody response, but I understand it seems to have a bit better long term protection as it stimulates T cells more. Our extended 12 week vaccination schedule may again have reduced initial protection but lengthened the period of protection after the second dose. Perversely the long period of elevated infections since July may have the effect of “broadening” the peak that other European countries are seeing now, as there are millions of people in our population with elevated resistance due to recent infection (as well as something like 16,000 deaths in that period).
In other respects we are vulnerable. We delayed vaccinating children, and the NHS is already under incredible strain. We start from an elevated base of infections, hospitalisations and deaths. People cannot be expected to work under that level of stress for an extended period without adverse results. We are going to see a legacy on staff mental health, career change, etc, for years to come. Not to mention the enormous backlogs in other treatments.
There is still a long way to go, and we are going to see the repercussions for years to come.
Your last point is the one thing I think certain