Appeared in southern Africa and now present in several European countries, could the Omicron variant, more contagious but less dangerous, sign the end of the Covid-19 pandemic? In front of the deputies this Monday the Minister of Health Olivier Véran showed a cautious optimism: “Maybe this is the last variant, maybe this is the last wave, maybe this wave will allow us to acquire some form of immunity.” A scenario which seems at this stage to be shared by a number of experts. With a new variant which is “a little more transmissible (than its predecessors, editor’s note) but less aggressive, perhaps we are witnessing the beginning of an evolution towards a more banal virus like we know of others”, thus launched Monday on BFMTV Prof. Alain Fischer, the “Monsieur vaccine” of the French government.
Immunity
Accused of saturating so-called “conventional” hospital beds, Omicron could make it possible to acquire a natural immunity which, combined with vaccine immunity, would mark entry into a less severe stage of the pandemic, want to believe these experts and observers.
“Ultimately, there is hope” and “Sars-CoV-2 will join other human seasonal coronaviruses that give us colds and tonsillitis every winter”, also advanced this weekend the epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet. “We are not there yet. We can expect that new variants will emerge, but as our immunity strengthens over time, either through natural infection or with booster doses of the vaccine, their ability to give severe forms will decrease “, he predicted.
“Are everyone going to end up being immune to this virus? The answer is clearly yes”, commented on Franceinfo on Monday on Professor Bruno Lina, virologist at the Hospices Civils de Lyon and member of the Scientific Council. “We are in the process of changing the software of this virus a little because of the mutations which have occurred in the Omicron variant and because of this immunity that we have acquired collectively. The virus behaves differently and switches to a virus which gives more upper airway infections “, he clarified.
Is this variant the first in a series of less offensive mutations? “Everything is possible, but what matters is that with the immunity that we have collectively developed we will have tendency to have less severe forms. We can expect there to be genetic variations on the virus but not necessarily variations that would cause problems in terms of transmission or virulence. “
Uncertainties
But before we get there, the price to pay could be “a high number of infections among the population“As the director of the Israeli Ministry of Health, Nachman Ash, said on Sunday, speaking about his country. Even with a milder virus, the consequences could be serious collectively, the number of cases risking automatically lead to an increase in the number of hospitalized patients.
Moreover, no one knows when this hoped-for collective immunity could materialize.. “I still have hope that the virus will end up being more like other cold coronaviruses – maybe over the next year or two – by repeating the vaccines and keeping the mask and social distancing for the most vulnerable. , like what we do for the flu every year “, recently underlined Julian Tang, virologist and professor at the University of Leicester, quoted by the British organization Science Media Center.
All the scenarios still on the table?
After two years of Covid-19, different variants and evolutions which often have foiled all predictions, however, some refuse to formulate hypotheses. “If we want to start learning the lessons of the recent past of this pandemic, let’s remember that it is largely unpredictable“, epidemiologist Antoine Flahault told AFP. According to him, the concept of collective immunity is “purely theoretical”. “It seems that vaccine immunity protects effectively against severe forms of the disease but not all vaccinated either”, he developed. Moreover, according to him, “the immunity acquired naturally, by a history of infection by the coronavirus, also seems to provide a form of protection, in particular against the serious forms, but none of this is completely clear “.
For the director of the Institute for Global Health in Geneva, all the scenarios therefore remain on the table today: from the most optimistic, mentioned in particular by Olivier Véran, to the most pessimistic, involving for example great difficulty in passing the peak of ‘Omicron, the saturation of health systems or the emergence of a new variant. “I am convinced that it will not be the last wave “, for his part estimated Sunday Professor Eric Caumes, head of the infectious diseases department at the Parisian hospital of La Pitié Salpêtrière. “But it may be the last of this intensity “.