There is a heightened global trepidation over omicron, the new variant of the coronavirus that was first reported in South Africa. Researchers have said it could be the most infectious form of coronavirus and that it might even beat current vaccines, but most people say their predictions are too far flung. For the most of this year the World have been fighting off coronavirus variants that are all more efficient than the ‘bad guy’ from Wuhan. Covid19 has basically turned our planet into the scariest ‘frat house’ of them all.
Just when we wanted to breathe a heavy sign of relief, scientists in South Africa came with ‘a bang’, they had discovered a variant that’s not just scary but ‘freaking scary’ and we are all freaked basically. What’s most scary about this virus is that this is ‘its platinum hit’ yet. This virus is the 12th variant of the coronavirus and the 5th variant of concern (VOC). This variant might not be as scary as we all think because there’s tons of information that we don’t have about it yet, like when our bosses act like they made big changes to our salary and we later its just a raise slightly over a thousand naira with a bunch of rules that will make you work so much that your blood pressure ‘protests’.
On November 24, 2021, a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, B.1.1.529, was reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) and this new variant was first detected in specimens collected on November 11, 2021 in Botswana and on November 14, 2021 in South Africa. On November 26, 2021, WHO named the B.1.1.529 Omicron and classified it as a Variant of Concern (VOC). On November 30, 2021, the United States designated Omicron as a Variant of Concern, and on December 1, 2021 the first confirmed U.S. case of Omicron was identified. Omicron variant is the one to watch at the moment, scientists have speculated that, of all the other unnamed variants, omicron evolved faster and with more mutations, because according to them it likely originated in someone with a compromised immune system, particularly someone with HIV.
Omicron could turn out to be very nasty or just a false alarm, or maybe somewhere in between. Omicron has over thirty two to fifty concerning mutations in its spike protein, it shares several key mutations with beta and gamma that makes them less vulnerable to vaccines. The antibodies that are generated from the vaccine usually target three regions on the spike protein and omicron sadly has mutations in all three of those regions, the mutations make it prone to spread faster by binding more tightly to the ACE-2 receptor and get into cells more easily by tweaking the furan cleavage site, because all these specific mutations, many of which are already known to be marks of badness and other variants that promote viral proliferation, viral spread and antibody resistance which is a bad news. Even though the genetic sequence of this virus is known, the technology to reliably predict how a virus’s behaviour will change based on that, including whether or not it can evade our current vaccines, that technology doesn’t exist, we can’t determine the virus’s behaviour based purely on genetic information.
Several countries have clamped down on international travel and most countries in Southern and other parts of Africa have been cut off from the other parts of the World. Japan have banned all foreign arrivals, Morocco halted all inbound flights and Israel closed its borders for two weeks. The United States, Brazil, Singapore, Poland Australia, and Indonesia are among countries to bar travellers from Southern African Nations where the variant was first reported. The United Kingdom was first to place a travel ban on some African countries including Nigeria, their ‘justification’ was that they couldn’t afford to expose their citizens to the new variant, although Omicron had already spread to several countries in Europe, Asia and America, and eight other African countries that were banned hadn’t even confirmed the variant in their territories at the time, but Africa had to be ‘the scape goat’ for the United Kingdom and the rest of the Countries who put ‘knock on’ travel restrictions in place. Truth is, travel ban from South Africa and some other African countries translates simply to being ‘penalized’ for a variant that we are supposed to fight collectively. South African researchers did the right thing by coming forward with a new variant that was identified and instead of getting all the help that they need, the ‘big guys’ shut them out.
As far as the coronavirus is concerned, we are all in it together, and we all know that Africa wasn’t as badly hit by covid19 as much as other parts of the World anticipated. The United States, Singapore, China and a few other countries had reported cases of local transmission of the virus and no one seemed to freight as much as they did when the news came from South Africa. The economic implication of a travel ban especially in the festive period is a downer for an already ‘inflation infested’ economy. The international community and advanced nations must only work towards equitable distribution of vaccines to all, channel whatever aid they can give to countries on the African continent to target local vaccine production and health care subsidy and not crucify South Africa for sharing their findings with the World and in the process victimizing some other African countries.
Halima Imam
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