Explainer: The forever virus?

Many feared for the worst when the Omicron variant, which combines some of the most perplexing mutations seen in the Alpha, Beta and Gamma strains with newly acquired ones, was first detected in Uganda last December. 
While the strain has proven to be more transmissible, it is also evidently less virulent. 

Experts, however, say this tolerable outlook should not coax people into lowering the proverbial guard. Covid-19 could yet turn out to be a forever virus. This is not what many envisaged when the pandemic started to spread at the backend of 2019 from that first cluster in the capital of China’s Hubei province. Since then, a number of problematic variants of the pathogen have been spawned. 

Key variants classifications by World Health Organisation (WHO)
They include: Alpha (B.1.1.7), which was first detected in Kent; UK; Beta (B.1.351) first detected in South Africa; Gamma (P.1) first detected in Brazil; Delta (B.1.617.1 B.1.617.2) first detected in India; Epsilon (B.1.427 B.1.429) detected in California; Zelta (P.2) first detected in Brazil; Eta (B.1.525) first detected in UK and Nigeria; Theta (P.3) first detected in the Philippines; and Omicron (B.1.1.529) first detected in South Africa.

Coronavirus waves in Uganda 
Since registering her patient zero in March 2020, Uganda has had three coronavirus waves. The second wave—which swept through all corners of the country from the backend of May 2021 to July that same year—brought with it many hospitalisations and deaths amid an acute shortage of oxygen and ICU beds.

This followed the genomic sequencing of the deadly Delta variant after a family returned from a visit to India. Delta spread at such a ferocious pace, claiming an unprecedented 89 deaths (record for a single day) on June 28, 2021. The daily caseload of 2,100 infections registered on June 12, 2021, came marginally close to toppling the 2,250 cases registered on December 9, 2020 (first wave) when electioneering hit a crescendo in the country.

Enter the highly transmissible Omicron
This rapidly spreading variant, which the WHO says is three times more transmissible than the original pathogen of 2020, is responsible for Uganda’s third wave. The first seven cases were confirmed during the first week of December 2021. Thereafter, the daily caseload swelled from double digits to as many as 1,251 on Christmas Day and 1,867 as Ugandans quietly ushered in the New Year. Yet deaths and hospitalisations mercifully remained low. 

Empirical evidence could not quite support the underlying presumption that the absence of an Omicron onslaught was hemmed in by vaccinations and immunity from prior infections. It is also impossible to tell whether the magical herd-immunity threshold—which experts put anywhere between 70 percent and 90 percent of the population—has been reached.

So what exactly is going on here?
When contact-intensive sectors such as education and hospitality were reopened last month, Omicron was widely expected to find plenty of manoeuvring room for wreaking havoc. But while its ability to evade immune-system protections is well documented, this Covid-19 strain causes less severe illness, especially among those fully inoculated. 

Scientists say this could be because—rather than lodging all the way into the lungs like strains before it—this variant primarily targets the upper respiratory tract. But it could also simply be because—even as they strike the perfect balance for reproducing in human hosts—viruses tend to become mild as time marches on. This has come to be seen as some kind of survival strategy on the part of the pathogen. Their production of benign [mild] symptoms is indication of adaptation on the part of the pathogen to the human population.

Is this the beginning of the end of the pandemic then?

Not quite. Scientists say it’s way too early to declare that—thanks to Omicron—Covid-19 will morph into a pathogen as benign as, say, the common cold. They are cognisant of the fact that opportunities for the virus to replicate and mutate will continue to abound if it continues to be highly transmissible. Unvaccinated hotspots will continue to be petri dishes. In fact, many experts are convinced that the evolution of Covid-19 into a benign virus could take years. Sage scientists from the United Kingdom, for instance, predict that—keeping other factors (surveillance, vaccination, etc) constant—it will take “at least five years” for Covid-19 to settle into an endemic state. 

So Covid-19 is here to stay…
From the looks of it, yes. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is not going away. It looks primed to settle into a notorious role as a forever virus. The vast bulk of scientists are convinced that SARS-CoV-2 is unlikely to mirror measles where childhood vaccination confers immunity for life. Like influenza, it might well require yearly shots and constant vigilance.