Days after Australia’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Sonya Bennett described the Omicron variant as “mild” for most people, the World Health Organization (WHO) and leading epidemiologists have said it is anything but that.
“While Omicron does appear to be less severe compared to Delta, especially in those vaccinated, it does not mean it should be categorised as mild,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva on Thursday.
“Just like previous variants, Omicron is hospitalising people and it is killing people … In fact, the tsunami of cases is so huge and quick, that it is overwhelming health systems around the world,” he said.
Leading epidemiologists in Australia who spoke to SBS News agree.
“There are two reasons WHO are being cautious about this,” Adrian Esterman, an epidemiologist from the University of South Australia, said.
“The first is that, even if it’s milder, there are so many people now being infected that even a small proportion of them getting severely ill is a lot of people,” Professor Esterman said.
“And the second reason is, we simply don’t have the data to say that it is milder in many countries that have got a high proportion of unvaccinated people,” he said.
Adrian Esterman, epidemiologist from the University of South Australia. Source: Supplied
While COVID-19 numbers are skyrocketing in Australia, epidemiologist Nancy Baxter said the infection cannot be considered like the “common cold” yet.
'It’s expanding who it can infect'
“One of the challenges with Omicron has been this narrative that it’s mild,” Dr Baxter, head of the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne, told SBS News.
“And what it’s made us do is kind of underestimate its ability to disrupt society. It’s important for us to understand that this hasn’t become the common cold.”
Dr Baxter expressed concern about more and more vaccinated people contracting this variant of the coronavirus.
“Part of the reason why it seems milder isn’t because it’s necessarily mild, but because it’s infecting people who have had vaccines. It’s actually getting around our protection better than some of the other variants. So, in some ways, it’s expanding who it can infect, which isn’t really mild,” she said.
About half a dozen recent studies from research facilities such as the Neyts Lab at Leuven University in Belgium and the University of Hong Kong suggest Omicron does not damage lungs as much as the Delta and other previous variants.
Nancy Baxter, head of the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne. Source: Supplied
The studies, however, have not yet been peer-reviewed by other scientists.
“Most of these studies have been done in vaccinated populations, so we simply don’t have enough data to be able to say categorically that it’s milder in the unvaccinated,” Professor Esterman said.
Dr Baxter’s and Professor Esterman’s comments come just days after Dr Bennett described the Omicron variant as “a less severe virus”.
“The Omicron variant is, inherently, in itself, a less severe virus,” she told reporters on Tuesday.
“There [are] certainly many more cases of COVID in the community we are not aware of,” she said.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Because I think generally ... where we are seeing COVID is in younger people, it’s very mild. Many might not know they have it, or it’s just a sniffle. So they are not overly unwell,” she said.
This is not the first time the Federal Government and the Department of Health have downplayed the severity of the Omicron variant.
In late November last year, just two days after WHO designated Omicron as a “variant of concern”, Health Minister Greg Hunt referred to it as “manageable”.
“Our overwhelming view is that while it’s an emerging variant, it’s a manageable variant,” Mr Hunt told reporters in Canberra on 30 November.
There are some fundamental flaws in the government’s messaging, said Professor Esterman.
“There are two points the government simply isn’t recognising.
“The first is that even with Omicron some people get severely ill and die.
“The second issue, which the government fails to mention, is long COVID. We know that a reasonable proportion of people who get infected end up with long-term health problems.
“So to make out this is just nothing worse than the flu is extremely poor messaging,” Professor Esterman said.
