Editorial: The critical information policy makers need about Omicron

People walk down a street in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which is going into lockdown over the holidays. Photo / AP

New Zealand is in an unusual situation of being able to consider its next moves on dealing with Omicron from a currently quiet space - even as the variant knocks on the door.

As other countries see case numbers soar while they throw what counter-measures they can at the latest version of Covid-19, health and government officials here can use the country's closed borders to buy some time.

The Cabinet meets today to discuss issues such as the booster shot programme and scheduled border changes.

It comes after Pfizer executives put a dreary timeline on the coronavirus woe, predicting that by 2024, the disease could be endemic around the globe - so no longer a pandemic. "Covid will transition to an endemic state potentially by 2024."

Right now, definitive information about just how ill people, including those double vaccinated, can get from Omicron is yet to emerge. That's the critical information policy makers need about the variant, which has been detected in 89 countries.

In the meantime there have been several reports and studies on the variant in the past few days, although early information about Omicron comes with lots of caveats. Countries have different population profiles and other factors, so it might do more damage in some than others.

The Netherlands has now gone into a strict lockdown until January 14 and others might follow. Omicron's spread is almost off-the-graph fast, but growing data on hospitalisations and death rates will be most important.

Experts believe it is able to transmit more easily and also "escape" immunity to some degree. They also stress that third, booster, doses are necessary and that the volume of record-breaking case numbers being posted will stress health systems.

It is still unknown whether Omicron is more or less severe than Delta. A study from Imperial College London says that boosters could provide 85 and 90 per cent protection from Omicron against severe illness and death respectively, two months after being administered. "Omicron was associated with a 5.4-fold higher risk of reinfection compared with Delta," the study said.

British government adviser Professor Neil Ferguson, who led the study, said the data showed "no strong signal of an intrinsically reduced severity of Omicron versus Delta" and added that more would be known "within a week".

Ferguson added that: "If you have enough cases per day, the resulting number of hospitalisations we think could still pose potentially major challenges for any health system".

Research from Cambridge University found that while Omicron is very contagious and evasive, it appears to be less capable than Delta at infecting lung cells. It found that a booster dose restores vaccine efficiency a month after the shot.

A Hong Kong study also found that that the variant tended to stay in the upper respiratory tract, rather than the lungs.

If the variant is - literally - ideally placed to be spread by breathing, sneezing or coughing, then a new initiative by New York city to distribute a million KN95 masks appears to be smart. A person using good-quality masks would have better protection against viral intake from someone infectious.

If Covid is going to be around for at least two more years, health measures in New Zealand will need to become more sustainable next year, with the border changes as planned before Omicron's arrival.

But as we wait for more answers on the variant, it looks likely that shift may be delayed.