Editorial: No one is safe until everyone is safe

Three weeks ago, Europe had once again turned into an epicentre of COVID-19 with a surge in infections, as Germany raked up over 50,000 new cases in one day. Now, governments across the world are split over the response in dealing with a new variant of the virus that has been christened Omicron. On Sunday, a few nations in Europe announced their first cases of the strain and set in motion the process of shutting themselves out from the rest of the world to contain the contagion, by announcing renewed travel restrictions.

On Saturday, Germany and the UK confirmed they had detected cases of the B.1.1.529 Omicron variant, while on Sunday, it was reported that out of a total of 61 passengers who had arrived in the Netherlands on two flights from South Africa, 13 had tested positive for the new variant and were kept in isolation. Health professionals have expressed apprehension over the variant of concern that managed to turn a period of low transmission in South Africa into a period of elevated spikes in transmission. Here in India, where we have disbursed over one billion shots, the arrival of a few patients from South Africa has put the administration on high alert, with the Centre deciding to review the resumption of international flights.

The fears aren’t unfounded as AIIMS Director, Dr Randeep Guleria warned on Sunday that Omicron has as many as 30 mutations in the spike protein that gives it the potential to bypass the immunity which has now been offered to people by the COVID vaccines. The variant has been detected in around 11 nations including Italy, Belgium, Botswana, Australia, Israel, and Hong Kong. These are nations that India has placed in an ‘at risk’ category when it comes to additional follow-up measures for inbound travellers. Various African nations including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, and Seychelles were slapped with travel restrictions by the US, the EU, Canada, and Brazil, in contravention of the UN’s appeal desisting nations from opting for knee-jerk measures before the variant was thoroughly researched.

The confusion surrounding the new variant has been narrowed down to three questions - whether it’s more transmissible than the prevalent Delta variant; whether it is capable of causing severe illness, and most importantly, does it have the potential for immune escape – or the strength to render our immune defences, derived either via vaccination or through previous infections, less effective? The answers are troubling by some stretch of the imagination.

In South Africa, a majority of sequenced cases are known to comprise of the Omicron variant, as per national estimates. But it just might be too early for scientists to offer a guesstimate of whether Omicron is cause for greater or more severe forms of the disease. Having said that, it falls upon nations to embark upon a broad-based testing methodology of their people, which could possibly offer some answers in a matter of a few weeks. On the final concern pertaining to how strongly will our existing vaccines hold up against the new variant, there are quite a few areas of speculation. Virologists consider it highly unlikely that the new variant could throw the protection offered by all our vaccines for a loop.

Amidst the brouhaha, one thing we must not ignore is how experts had reiterated that no one will be safe until everyone is safe. That axiom had fallen flat on its face going by how Africa lags behind in the vaccination drive. The continent in total has fully vaccinated just about 77 mn people or about 6% of its population. Compare this to 70% of the high-income nations that have already vaccinated over 40% of their people. If anything, the self-fulfilling prophecy that vaccination inequity would only spur new variants seems to be coming true, one strain at a time.