The next plague

Here's a discussion by Kelly Piper of the ominous implications of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. Most people are thinking that in the long run, it's good news that we have this highly contagious, but less virulent strain of the virus. Once we get past the surge and the problems of overwhelmed hospitals and too many people out sick, we'll have a degree of herd immunity and it will be comparable to flu and other respiratory viruses that we already live with.

That may be true, although it's too soon to tell. Another more dangerous variant may yet emerge. But it also points to a danger -- this highly contagious virus spread around the world incredibly swiftly. It is so contagious that the kinds of mitigation strategies that worked against earlier variants in countries that locked down hard probably won't work against Omicron. (This may be bad news for China, that uses a vaccine which is  largely ineffective against it, although Piper doesn't really discuss that.)

 

But the problem is that the next highly contagious virus might also be highly virulent. There is no law that says highly contagious must mean not very deadly. We've pretty much forgotten about smallpox, because vaccination works. But the next emergent virus might be like smallpox. So let me say, once again, Be Prepared. We  need a global surveillance system and a system for quickly sequencing novel viruses and quickly developing vaccines -- but no system will be fast enough to catch up to a virus that spreads around the world in a few weeks. No telling when it will happen, but some day it will.