The Scientist - USA (2022 - Spring)

SPRING 2022 | THE SCIENTIST 9

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9

MODIFIED FROM © ISTOCK.COM, LONGQUATTRO

I

n late November 2021, The Scientist’s editorial team convened to

discuss mounting case reports, coming mostly from South Africa,

of patients infected with the newly described Omicron variant

of SARS-CoV-2. We talked about this latest development in the

COVID-19 pandemic, which we’ve been covering since before it was

even called a pandemic, and how we might report on it. During that

meeting, I expressed something to the effect of: “I wouldn’t be sur-

prised if we’re not even talking about Omicron two weeks from now.”

How wrong I turned out to be.

Here we are, well into a new year (the third of the COVID era),

and the Omicron variant has washed over our pandemic-weary

globe, adding to the case and body counts mounted by its viral pre-

decessors. Hospitals around the world strained to treat COVID-

patients in early 2022 while at the same time delivering much-

needed, and in some cases long-postponed, medical care for other

maladies. Omicron was the dominant variant in the US by the end

of 2021, just weeks after the first US case was reported on Decem-

ber 1. And according to the US Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC), Omicron accounts for 100 percent of COVID-

cases among Americans as of this writing, in early March.

As we discussed Omicron at our news meeting back in Novem-

ber, scientists were only just beginning to understand the novel

variant, how it behaved in human populations, and its similar-

ities to and differences from the highly virulent Delta variant,

which dominated infections for much of last year. At that point,

researchers were reporting that Omicron seemed less severe than

Delta. Meanwhile, some other variants that we had thought were

going to take over quickly fizzled out. These factors contributed

to my faulty reasoning that Omicron would likely be a flash in the

pan, out of the news cycle in no time.

After four months and dozens of articles published by

The Scientist and other outlets, we know a bit more about Omicron.

The variant does appear to cause less-severe disease than Delta at

the population level, but that may be thanks to the increase in vac-

cinations that occurred between the two variants’ respective waves,

rather than the viruses’ intrinsic properties. Researchers have also

determined that Omicron’s enhanced transmissibility is likely due

to two properties of the variant: it propagates significantly faster

in bronchi than the Delta variant did, and it is better at evading

immune protection from vaccines or previous infection than pre-

vious variants were.

Now, a subvariant of Omicron, BA.2, has emerged and cur-

rently makes up more than 8 percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections in

the US. Nevertheless, case numbers have dropped dramatically, and

we appear to be emerging from the Omicron wave. As it ebbs, state,

local, and school mask mandates are lifting, and the CDC announced

in late February that healthy people living in communities with low

or moderate COVID-19 levels can forgo wearing masks in most pub-

lic places. Lest I repeat my mistaken hope that one variant’s exit did

not necessarily mean the next one’s rise to prominence, I am tem-

pering my optimism with a healthy dose of caution.

Surely, as we begin to glimpse a post-pandemic world, new vari-

ants of the virus will continue to emerge and spread. Perhaps the

disease that has so radically altered the course of Earth’s history

for the past two-plus years will become endemic, settling in as an

unfortunate feature of the human experience like countless other

illnesses and pathogens. This may mean that we will gradually grow

accustomed to COVID-19, such that its presence becomes less dis-

ruptive to our economies, politics, and relationships—to our lives—

than it has been to this point. But it doesn’t mean that we should

adopt a posture of complacency.

I, for one, won’t be dismissing any more variants as flashes in

the global pan. The trick now will be to balance appropriate lev-

els of vigilance and prudence with a sense of hope that our world

will slowly adapt to the presence of COVID-19. At this juncture,

envisioning such a world seems difficult but not impossible. For

me, accomplishing this mental feat involves first letting go of the

dream that I (and perhaps some of you) clung to as the reality of

a pandemic-wracked planet truly sank in: that one day we’d be

rid of this disease. g

Editor-in-Chief

[email protected]

The first part of 2022 is giving us a glimpse

of humanity’s future relationship with COVID-19.

BY BOB GRANT

Living the Life Pandemic

FROM THE EDITOR