Good Tidings

The UK Health Security agency has today announced the 'encouraging' finding that those infected with the Omicron variant are 50-70% less likely to need hospital care. 

My suspicion is that they were in a position to do this before December 23, but needed some residual panic in the air to get Britons to the 44% booster level they now find themselves at. 

Needless to say, this little Christmas 'present' comes with a few strings attached. 

For the foreseeable future there will always be a non-trivial risk of covid complications for certain sections of the population, especially the older, so the Christmas dilemma many currently face is one that they will continue to face all year and for many years. 

The virus will most likely tend to become more contagious and less deadly. The more contagious part not only means that it will often slip past our antibodies, but that it will now also tend to evade the legal measures we have so far employed to prevent it spreading uncontrollably. 

An endemic pathogen is practically lockdown-proof and definitely 'circuit-breaker' proof. To "let it rip" or not will no longer surface as a political schism. It will rip, especially in the temperate zones in the cooler months. 

So called herd immunity will likely surge and dip. Periodic booster campaigns will help, but will probably never be regimented enough to prevent pockets of worrying outbreak for perhaps years to come. 

Rich nations will have full access to the vaccines and treatments like Paxlovid which could potentially put an end to the health service overload problem. Yet people will keep dying and the dent in life expectancy won't be fixed by next Christmas, or the Christmas after that.

At some stage in 2022 we will have updated versions of the major vaccines, more targeted to the Omicron spike protein, but we cannot rule out the emergence of further variants of concern with serious immune evasion tendencies. 

Currently booster effectiveness is said to wane after ten weeks, but new versions of the vaccines may stretch the ideal interval between jabs. 

So this takes us back to the 'common sense' that Boris likes to preach about yet possess so little of himself. There was a moment before they all went out into the number 10 garden with their cheese and wine where they should have thought 'naaaaaah'. 

We will all face similar moments in the years to come and we all have to assess them based on our understanding of both our personal risk and the risk that we could circulate and bring harm to others. 

A clear conscience (and relative freedom of movement) may require us to have an updated vaccine and a booster shot every year — that's three jabs in total. 

Meanwhile, the world may never be our oyster in the same way. Uneven control internationally will mean that travel may never be quite as open and frictionless as it had become by 2019. 

Important sectors of the economy like hospitality and entertainment are going to have to work really hard to reestablish the position they enjoyed pre-pandemic. 

We shall have to adapt and move on because there is no other way. 

Right now, wearing an N95 grade mask in all crowded situations seems the absolute bare minimum that common sense can ask of us. 

If Guatemalans can do it...

Remaining un-vaxed remains a dumb play...