Omicron makes endemic COVID-19 more likely — OCTA fellow

The possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic will become an endemic is made more likely by the more transmissible Omicron variant, a fellow of the OCTA Research group said Friday.

Molecular biologist Fr. Nic Austriaco said that the immunological memory of the population has become more robust amid the rise in cases.

“I think this is a consensus around the world now, that the Omicron makes this flu endemic more likely that this is how we’re going to move,” Austriaco said at a Go Negosyo forum.

Citing a paper published in the scientific journal Nature, Austriaco said it is most likely for COVID-19 to become endemic like the flu and is less likely to become an endemic like a common cold.

The paper was published before the discovery of the Omicron variant.

If the COVID-19 will become an endemic like the flu, Austriaco said the virus will become mild to most people, but may still cause hospitalization and death to vulnerable individuals.

“In this scenario, what will happen is that future COVID-19 vaccinations will only be for vulnerable people,” Austriaco said.

“This is what we think is going to happen and antiviral drugs and other therapies have to be developed to mitigate hospitalizations and death. So we’re thinking here of molnupiravir and paxlovid,” he added.

According to the Center for Disease Prevention, endemic refers to the constant presence and/or usual prevalence of a disease or infectious agent in a population within a geographic area.

He stressed that even with the mild symptoms associated with Omicron, it may still cause death among the unvaccinated.

“It is mild but it can still kill if you are unvaccinated and if you are not boosted,” he said.

Meanwhile, Austriaco said that COVID-19 is less likely to become an endemic like the common cold.

“There is no sign that COVID-19 will become this much milder in the foreseeable future. It took 130 years for the other coronavirus to become cold mild. At this point, we believe it will stay flu rather than a cold.

Austriaco also said it is not likely for “scarier” variants to evolve because of Omicron.

“Omicron has significantly constrained the mutational landscape of future variants of concern… because of Omicron, it is more difficult to make a scarier variant of Sars-CoV-2,” he said.

Citing a study, Austriaco said that a newer and more severe variant must find a spike that is different from those of Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron, which has at least 30 mutations in the spike protein.

Austriaco called the spike “key.”

“And yet, the key must still work, the key must still open human cells. This is very difficult because if you change the key too much, the key breaks,” he said.

“So the molecular biologists have looked at Omicron and said, can you change the key easily without breaking it? And they say it’s very, very difficult,” he added.

Due to this, Austriaco predicted that there may be a need for one more vaccination cycle where the public will get an Omicron-specific vaccine.—LDF, GMA News