Here & Now

Omicron Joins the Procession of Covid Variants

Ashok Rai:

In a single day here in Green Bay one of our hospitals had to say no to 28 patients being transferred in that needed them, including three strokes. And those families unfortunately had to have their family members transferred over to one 200 miles away just to get basic care that they needed. This wouldn’t happen if we had those beds and staff available to take care of them which are now being occupied by COVID patients.

Frederica Freyberg:

As the Delta COVID-19 variant causes case numbers to surge in Wisconsin, with positive cases now surpassing 5,000 a day and ICU beds nearly full up, another threat: the Omicron variant. How big a threat is it here? We turn to Dr. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. He joins us from Minneapolis. Thanks very much for doing so.

Michael Osterholm:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is your threat assessment on the Omicron variant?

Michael Osterholm:

It’s a real concern. It is a 210-mile curve ball thrown into this whole mix of COVID. This virus combines both the ability to be much more infectious and I think all the evidence we see in this first week of data collection is that in fact it is more infectious than Delta and it also has the ability to evade immune protection from previously having been infected or from the vaccines. That we’re still working on but early data shows us that many, many individuals who had previously been infected in South Africa are getting infected again. I think the one real question we still have yet is just what proportion of these people who do get infected whether they’ve been previously protected or not, how many of them have serious illness. And we are starting to see hospitalizations grow quite dramatically in South Africa and in particular in kids under the age of five.

Frederica Freyberg:

We know that it has been detected in several states, including Minnesota now. From what you know about its transmission, is it just a matter of time before there are widespread outbreaks, including where we are?

Michael Osterholm:

You know, it’s a hard thing to be talking about when here we sit here today with 95,000 new cases of Delta being reported today nationwide and the seven-day average going up every day. So that when you think about, well, could it get worse, this unfortunately is just that. I think that within the next three or four weeks, in many locations Omicron will become the dominant variant that we see. Last weekend, about one week ago, I said it wouldn’t surprise me if we found it in at least 50 countries and a number of the states by the end of this week. Well, here we are on Friday and it’s right on track for those numbers. So I think that we surely can expect to see global distribution and where it’s at it will spread readily.

Frederica Freyberg:

You spoke a moment ago about the severity of the disease that’s being seen. Initial reports it seemed were that it wasn’t as severe, but that is looking differently at this point?

Michael Osterholm:

Well, we cautioned people all along for two reasons, to come up with any conclusions about that. The first cases being reported out of South Africa were largely in young, healthy adults where we’d expect to see the least of the serious illnesses. Bit in addition, as we’ve talked about time and time again with this entire pandemic, we have to be concerned about what we call lagging indicators. Basically severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths often occur two to three weeks or more after individuals become infected and we are in the very earliest days of widespread transmission in South Africa. We even said last week it will probably take well into mid-December before we have a better handle on that. But what we’ve seen with hospitalizations in the last 24 to 36 hours in the Johannesburg and Pretoria area suggests that this is causing serious illness in a number of individuals. And just how that all shakes out in terms of who and when they become seriously ill is still something we’re trying to understand.

Frederica Freyberg:

For now, again, it’s the Delta variant causing case surges in Wisconsin and the upper Midwest. When vaccinations were made widely available did you ever expect to see us back in this place and now looking ahead to something potentially worse?

Michael Osterholm:

Well, actually I did. You may actually recall and I believe it was actually on this program last April when I saw what Alpha was doing and the fact that we now had Beta and Gamma, two variants that could evade immune protection but didn’t basically survive overall because they were not that infectious. At that time I said I was concerned that I thought that some of the darkest days of the pandemic might be ahead of us yet. That was not well received, discounted by many. I think based on what we’ve seen the last six months and now with this new 210-mile-an-hour curveball, I think people are beginning to understand this isn’t going to be like an influenza pandemic where basically you’re in it for 18 months to two years and then it just becomes seasonal influenza. This one keeps throwing surprises at us. As we’re seeing right now with the burden of illness even with Delta, what we are likely to see with Omicron, I think people can understand even though they may be done with the pandemic, the virus is not done with us. And that’s the challenge we have right now in trying to control the transmission of this virus in our communities.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there. We hope to check back in with you in future weeks. Dr. Michael Osterholm, thanks very much.

Michael Osterholm:

Thank you very much, Frederica.