Part 2 of 2
After a rocky start the Covid booster campaign has accelerated with over 30million people boosted according to the latest data, whether the public have appetite for further boosters is unclear
Death rates in South Africa's Omicron wave just a QUARTER of those from previous surges as scientists say ultra-infectious variant may 'usher in endemic phase'
Covid death rates in
South Africa's
Omicron wave were just a quarter of levels seen during previous surges, real-world data suggests.
Researchers examined records of 450 patients hospitalised in the City of Tshwane since the extremely-transmissible variant took off in the country.
Their survival rates were then compared against nearly 4,000 patients hospitalised earlier on in the pandemic.
Just 4.5 per cent of patients hospitalised with Covid in the last month died from the virus. For comparison, the rate stood at around 21.3 per cent earlier in the pandemic.
The findings, in the
International Journal of Infectious Diseases, also revealed ICU admissions were a quarter of the rate seen in previous waves, and patients' average hospital stay was halved.
The City of Tshwane is an authority situated in Gauteng — the first province to fall victim to Omicron.
Scientists behind the research said it shows 'a decoupling of cases, hospitalisations and deaths compared to previous waves'.
Omicron could be a 'harbinger of the end' of the darkest days of the pandemic and could usher in the virus's endemic phase, the team wrote.
Patients involved in the latest study were, however, much younger, which may have skewed the results.
But the academics, from South Africa's National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the University of Pretoria, aren't the first to show the virus is milder.
Other real-world studies from the UK and South Africa already reported that patients who catch the strain are up to 80 per cent less likely to be hospitalised.
He also told MailOnline that he didn't think offering a regular booster to keep immunity up was feasible or effective.
'Boosting every 10 weeks or every time a new variant appears to be on the rise is not doable and in consequence I think we need some sort of grading system for new variants to ensure we act appropriately and practically,' he said.
Professor Jones said annual top-up jabs for the vulnerable ahead of the peak winter illness season, December to February, would make more sense.
If all adults would need one depended on how Omicron continues to develop, Professor Jones said.
'If Omicron is an attenuated strain already on its way to endemicity then later versions may be even more mild and the need for vaccination for an otherwise fit adult might recede,' he said.
'You have to remember that making you very sick is no good to the virus at all, all it “wants” is to transmit, so virus evolution will tend towards a less severe strain which you will pass around as you will struggle on with work etc much as we do for common colds.'
On Omicron generally Professor Jones said descriptions from others of the ultra-infectious variant being a 'natural vaccine' were right.
He said that while any Covid variant boosts immunity the fact Omicron was highly transmissible yet milder worked to help boost population immunity.
'Whatever version you were infected with your immunity would be boosted,' he told MailOnline. 'That mild bit suits us because it means we can get immunity without, or with much less, risk.'
However, he warned against any 'chickenpox' style parties where people intentionally try to catch Omicron, saying we needed to protect people who could get severely ill from the virus.
'You have to be careful here not to stretch it to things such as chickenpox parties because there will always be a vulnerable minority and to encourage infection puts them at risk,' he said.
Hopes of Omicron ushering in the end of the pandemic stage of Covid were sparked by a South African study into Covid death rates in the nation's
Omicron wave. It showed fatalities were just a quarter of levels seen during other surges.
Researchers examined records of 450 patients hospitalized in the City of Tshwane, in the 'ground zero province of Gauteng, since the extremely-transmissible variant took off in the country. Their survival rates were compared to nearly 4,000 patients hospitalized earlier on in the pandemic.
Just 4.5 per cent of patients hospitalized with Covid in the last month died from the virus. For comparison, the rate stood at around 21.3 per cent earlier in the pandemic
Scientists from South Africa's National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the University of Pretoria, who carried out the research, said it shows 'a decoupling of cases, hospitalizations and deaths compared to previous waves'.
Omicron could be a 'harbinger of the end' of the darkest days of the pandemic and could usher in the virus's endemic phase, the team wrote in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Commentators around the world have latched on the findings and claimed Omicron could act as natural vaccine making the virus endemic to the population.
One of these was a health official for the Indian state of Maharashtra, Dr Pradeep Awate who told the Press Trust of India, that although Omicron was spreading faster than Delta, there had been few hospitalizations.
'If this happens, Omicron will act as a natural vaccination and may help in its (Covid's) progression towards the endemic stage,' he said.
But Dr Clarke cautioned against the idea of labelling Omicron a 'natural vaccine'.
‘The immunity we’ve had from other variants doesn’t protect all that well against Omicron, so there is no reason to think it works in the other direction,’ he said.
This is despite a new study from the Africa Health Research Institute showing blood taken from people infected with omicron recorded a 4.4-fold increase of antibodies when exposed to the the Delta version of the virus.
In contrast other studies delving into the topic of cross-variant immunity showed antibodies made in response to Delta reacted poorly to Omicron.
Dr Clarke added that just because Omicron was milder did not mean it, or other Covid variants, would remain so, adding: 'The idea that viral evolution is a one-way street to the common cold is absolute bull****.'
On the idea of more boosters and how often, Dr Clarke emphasized the need for more data before we know time gap between more Covid jabs.
He said there will be an 'optimum' gap between doses but 'we just don’t know what it is yet', adding that it 'won't be good' if jabs are done too far apart or close together.
The US broke a world record for average daily COVID cases for the second day in a row with 512,533 reported on Thursday, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of John Hopkins data
The record bests the nations previous record of 489,267 reported on Wednesday
Dr Clarke also advised against general predictions on how Covid boosters are going to be rolled out in 2022, highlighting how despite an Omicron jab being in development, it might fail, or need two doses similar to the initial Covid jab.
However he did say that boosters being used to keep immunity against infection topped-up through increased antibodies may be the preferred strategy going forward by the Government not wanting to impose restrictions and minimize disruption.
'Population wide vaccination will drive down transmission, it won't eliminate it, but it will drive it down across the population,' he said.
'And if you have lots of people who have more than the sniffles and are ill enough not to go to work, there is massive damage to public services and an economic slowdown.'
Professor Young also said while data had suggested a drop in booster effectiveness against Omicron infection, the outlook for longer term protection from against severe disease was still good.
'Preliminary data suggests that vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection with Omicron drops by between 15-25 per cent after 10 weeks,' he said.
'Thus those older individuals who were boosted at the beginning of the booster campaign in mid-September may not be as well protected from symptomatic infection.
'However, all current data indicates that booster jabs will protect from severe disease and that this should last for at least several months.'
He said the broad hope is that this protection against severe disease will eventually mean an annual booster jab for the elderly and other vulnerable groups will be sufficient to protect them from a severe Omicron infection in the coming years.
Professor Young also highlighted how immunity was a complex system, with different segments like antibodies rising in the short term when people get vaccinated. While other more difficult to measure parts like T-cells provide longer term protection.
'The good news is that recent studies have shown that both vaccination and natural infection induce a strong and sustained T-cell response to Omicron and other variants,' he said.
'This might be the key to longer term protection and the need for less frequent boosters.'
There have also been concerns about over-vaccinating people in the UK when so many in other parts of the world are unvaccinated.
Professor Adam Finn, a UK government vaccine adviser, previously told the
BBC that over-vaccinating people, when other parts of the world had none, was 'a bit insane, it's not just inequitable, it's stupid'.
Professor Young also highlighted that it might be more important to help other countries boost their vaccine uptake rather than offer all Britons another booster, to stop new variants from forming.
He highlighted Africa, where Omicron was first identified and almost certainly emerged, as one particular example.
'Virus variants will continue to be generated as long as the virus is allowed to spread particularly in countries where vaccination rates are low,' he said.
'This emphasizes the need to control the pandemic at the global level as well as locally and that it is in all our interests to support the roll out of vaccines across the world.
'In a situation where around 73 per cent of people in wealthy and middle-income countries have been vaccinated, this includes those who have had one, two or three doses, whereas only 12 per cent are vaccinated in Africa, we have to consider the value and luxury of additional booster doses if such vaccines are not widely available.'
Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious disease modeler and epidemiologist in New York has also highlighted the need to tackle the Covid pandemic on a global scale.
He said: 'We may find ourselves in a different kind of endemic equilibrium in which boosting is needed every four-six months and highly effective therapeutics are needed to limit severe disease. All this would need to be available globally and equitably. This is a daunting prospect. And psychologically challenging.'
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