Most of what we’re currently reading about Omicron—particularly the implications for 2022—is conjecture.
There isn’t enough data to accurately predict what’s going to happen. Thankfully, this evidence is expected to emerge within the next few weeks, or early in the new year.
An article that is gaining a lot of traction is ‘The Omicron Question’ by Thomas Pueyo. I admire how Pueyo has approached the topic, laid out his perspective based on the available data, and called out its limitations.
One of my key takeaways was that Omicron may not actually be more transmissible than Delta with respect to its R0, but given the number of mutations in its spike protein, it’s likely to be better at evading immunity. Here’s an excerpt from the article that explains it better than I can:
“If most people are either infected or vaccinated—as is the case in South Africa—a new winning variant is not going to be the one tweaking its transmission rate in an unprotected population. The winning variant will be the one bypassing existing immunity the most, even at the cost of some transmission rate reduction in unprotected people.
If 90% of people are not immune yet and 10% are, as a virus you want to optimize for those not immune yet. But if it’s the opposite, and now 90% of people are immune, you’ll switch your efforts and evolve to increase your transmission rate among immune people.”
So if you’re vaccinated or have had COVID, you’re unlikely to be infected or re-infected with Delta. Whereas that may not be the case with Omicron.
The critical piece of the puzzle we’re still waiting for is the data on Omicron’s fatality rate “with vaccines, with previous infection, and without vaccine or previous infection.”
Once we get this information, we’ll have a much better idea about what 2022 will look like.
I also appreciated Pueyo’s perspective in his conclusion:
“This is the final battle for COVID. It’s throwing everything it has at us and will overwhelm the world. But in doing so, it might have weakened itself. And it’s attacking at a moment when the world is well-armed with vaccines and prior infections.
I’m hopeful based on anecdotal evidence and community prediction, but we just don’t know.
In the meantime, I’ll get my booster shot, mix-and-match it, get my N95 masks back out, avoid massive indoor parties, and vaccinate my kids. Which is what I was going to do anyway.
Hopefully we’ll emerge on the other side of this wave in a world where our immunity to COVID is so strong that we don’t need to worry about it beyond getting our booster shots every now and then.”