The festive season in Britain is being hit by waves of Covid-19 infections. The Alpha variant spoiled Christmas and New Year last year. Omicron has sent case numbers soaring. The country is on the verge of another bleak New Year after Christmas cancellation swept through Britain's restaurants, pubs and clubs.
The scenario has raised fears that it will be the shape of Christmases to come. Social restrictions and threats could become our festive fare.
It is a sad prospect. Is it realistic? Is it justified to draw parallels between this Christmas and last year? These are key questions because we may find clues to the path of the entire epidemic.
How close is this year's outbreak to last winter?
The two years look similar, with case numbers in the UK rocketing in a few weeks. The new variant of Covid-19 appears to have fewer cases of severe illness than its predecessors, with latest research suggesting that this may be because of the low hospitalisations and deaths so far this year.
Scientists generally treated the results studies as good news, but they have cautioned against interpreting them as good news. It was estimated that 1.7 million people in the UK had Covid-19 last week, as the daily Covid-19 case numbers reached a record 122,000 on Friday.
There are differences in the ages of those affected by Omicron.
Most of the new cases have occurred in young adults, which has led some researchers to warn that if Omicron starts to affect older people, hospitalisations could still jump. A large number of people, especially the elderly, have been given vaccines and boosters and will have gained protection against Omicron. It is not known how these different factors affect figures. It is too early to be sure, as data is still being gathered. Policy decisions to protect public health have to be made.
Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University highlighted the problem. He told the journal Nature last week that there is a lag between infections and hospitalisation. Policy decisions have to be made in the meantime.
Is the virus likely to cause a lot of illness?
Evidence is now suggesting that this idea is correct. Recent studies in Scotland, England and South Africa all point to this. The Professor of Respiratory Sciences at the University of Leicester believes that this variant is the first step in a process in which the virus will adapt to the human population and produce more benign symptoms. It is to the advantage of the virus if it affects people in a way that they don't get sick, so that they can spread the virus even more.
Will Covid-19 behave like flu?
Some health officials have predicted that Covid-19 could end up behaving like an flu, which requires a new vaccine to deal with new strains that appear every year. coronaviruses, like those that cause common colds, do not behave this way, according to Professor Martin Hibberd of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Our immunity to coronaviruses does not last very long, which is the reason we get colds in winter. The virus seems to be similar to the ones that cause colds. It is possible that we need to give vaccines to protect against Covid-19 every year.
Tang says that we don't face doom and gloom for the next five years. I think the virus will evolve out of the pandemic strain very soon and become milder, more transmissible to the point where you may only need to think about vaccinating the more vulnerable members of the population.
