The world is on high alert again after another SARS-CoV-2 mutation has been identified. The WHO has named the B.1.1.529 variant the Omicron variant from the Greek alphabet, having skipped over Xi for some reason.
Various media, politicians and experts have been issuing dire warnings of a grave threat, some even comparing it to Ebola or worse. But does that fear mongering match up to reality? How grave of the threat is this new strain actually?
To begin with, at no point have any of the variance turned out to be worse for health or more severe in terms of illness. What tends to happen to viruses as they mutate is that they become less lethal while they spread more easily.
For the recent variant, it's been associated as the Botswana strain. But the strain wasn't even first detected in Botswana. Could it be that they are trying to falsely associate an African region is the origin of an alleged yet unproven more deadly strain? It's interesting to note that with a 6% vaccination rate in Africa, it's also a part of the world that his the least affected by Covid while other parts of the world claim such devastation.
But getting back to the current alleged threat, Barry Schoub, chairman of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Vaccines who spoke with sky news said that South Africa, which is where this new strain was allegedly first identified, has 3220 people with the core rotavirus infection overall. That is spreading, but there is no increase in hospitalizations.
This correlates with how science has currently understood viruses to operate, that they mutate and become less lethal despite an easier ability to spread.
The cases that have occurred so far have all been mild cases, mild-to-moderate cases, and that’s a good sign,
Schoub also said that the large number of mutations, which some other fear mongering asked experts say is horrible and shocking and other buzzwords to invoke fear, actually appeared to destabilize the virus which would make it less fit than the current Delta strain.
The omicron strain apparently first emerged in early November in South Africa. Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association said that the symptoms associated with the variant were different and mild compared to previous patient she's treated in recent months.
By all accounts and all evidence so far, there is no reason to be creating such fear mongering about the "horrible amount of mutations" to the spike protein as some fear mongering experts have chosen to say. The media and politicians have run with this message in order to justify further useless lockdowns and mandates that don't do anything except create greater suffering for people.
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