Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Early Findings: Omicron May Be Milder Than Delta, Might Even Help Defeat It
The New York Times: Early Omicron Reports Say Illness May Be Less Severe
The Covid-19 virus is spreading faster than ever in South Africa, the country’s president said Monday, an indication of how the new Omicron variant is driving the pandemic, but there are early indications that Omicron may cause less serious illness than other forms of the virus. Researchers at a major hospital complex in Pretoria reported that their patients with the coronavirus are much less sick than those they have treated before, and that other hospitals are seeing the same trends. In fact, they said, most of their infected patients were admitted for other reasons and have no Covid symptoms. (Chutel, Perez-Pena and Anthes, 12/6)
CIDRAP: Report From South Africa's Omicron Hot Spot Spurs Cautious Optimism
A report on hospital admissions in South Africa's worst-affected Omicron (B.1.1.529) COVID-19 variant district—Tshwane near Pretoria—sheds light on clinical patterns, offering some optimism, but with the caveat that the information portrays only the first 2 weeks of the surge. Meanwhile, some scientists who are assessing transmission data say case counts could dwarf the Delta (B1617.2) variant, which even in the face of milder disease would still overburden healthcare systems. The worries about the more transmissible variant come amid reports of super spreader events in Norway and Denmark. (Schnirring, 12/6)
Could omicron end up helping to eradicate delta? —
USA Today: Omicron Could Be More Contagious, Less Dangerous. That Would Be 'Good News For The Human Race.'
Overall, news of the variant's transmissibility and virulence could be good news, with the understanding that certainty is weeks away, say experts. "It would be a great thing if, in fact, omicron crowded out delta. If omicron was a less pathogenic virus, that would be very good news for the human race," said Dr. Warner Greene, director of the Center for HIV Cure Research at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco. It also makes sense for the virus to evolve in the direction of being less dangerous, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. (Weise, 12/7)
AP: Omicron V. Delta: Battle Of Coronavirus Mutants Is Critical
As the omicron coronavirus variant spreads in southern Africa and pops up in countries all around the world, scientists are anxiously watching a battle play out that could determine the future of the pandemic. Can the latest competitor to the world-dominating delta overthrow it? Some scientists, poring over data from South Africa and the United Kingdom, suggest omicron could emerge the victor. “It’s still early days, but increasingly, data is starting to trickle in, suggesting that omicron is likely to outcompete delta in many, if not all, places,” said Dr. Jacob Lemieux, who monitors variants for a research collaboration led by Harvard Medical School. (Ungar and Meldrum, 12/7)
In other news about the omicron variant —
Axios: Axios-Ipsos Poll: Americans Shrug Off Omicron
Most Americans aren't willing to make big changes in their behavior to minimize the risk from the Omicron variant, like avoiding indoor restaurant dining or cancelling their holiday travel plans, according to a new Axios-Ipsos poll. The poll found support for some broader public responses, including one — travel bans aimed at people from other countries — that was widely supported by people across the political spectrum. But it found that Americans are only willing to do so much on their own. (Nather, 12/7)
The Wall Street Journal: However You Pronounce ‘Omicron,’ You’re Probably Saying It Wrong
The World Health Organization’s decision this year to use letters of the Greek alphabet to name Covid variants is a source of both honor and consternation for Greeks and Greek-Americans. “We always take a secret pride in Greek being used for scientific purposes—even if it is to describe a variant that creates a new level of panic in all of us,” said Sylvia Papapostolou-Kienzl, a host of a Sunday morning Greek-language radio program in New York. That was true for earlier variants such as Alpha or Delta, which didn’t trip up most non-Greek speakers. Omicron, though, showed that such prominence can come at a cost: a mangled parlance that amplifies academic rifts over ancient and modern pronunciations. (Andriotis and Sugden, 12/6)
Bloomberg: Origin Of Omicron: Mutations May Give Clues How Strain Develops, Analysis Shows
Omicron’s unusually large number of mutations on the gene that helps the coronavirus spread may provide clues as to how it developed, according to a computational analysis of the variant. The co-existence of mutations on the so-called S-gene that would normally inhibit the ability of the virus to thrive suggests the changes are instead working to make the variant more effective at spreading, according to a blog post by researchers led by Associate Professor Darren Martin at the University of Cape Town’s Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine. (Sguazzin, 12/6)
KQED: Scientists Find Traces Of Omicron In Sewage From Sacramento And Merced
Scientists testing sewage in California say they've detected evidence indicating a low-level presence of the omicron variant in Sacramento and Merced. The research team found small concentrations of a mutation characteristic of omicron in samples taken from wastewater treatment plants in the two cities, but caution that the results do not indicate yet that the variant is widely circulating. The research team includes scientists from Stanford University, the University of Michigan and Emory University. (Maria Dillon and Fitzgerald Rodriguez, 12/6)
