With cases and fears of the new omicron variant rapidly spreading around the world, we spoke with Eurasia Group’s top public health expert, Scott Rosenstein, to get a little perspective on what needs to be done. ‘to worry, what not to do and if the pandemic will ever really end.

Scott, we seem to be in the omicron age now. On the scale of mild worry to doomsday panic, how worried should we really be?

Go to the window, open it and repeat the following: WE DON’T KNOW YET, BUT VIGILANCE IS GUARANTEED. Current signals, still early and vague, suggest that this variant could be extremely transmissible and that it has mutations that could reduce – but not eliminate – the protection offered by current vaccines. In principle, that means we have a variant that could cause cases to spike and add strain to healthcare in places that thought the worst was behind them.

But don’t forget that the delta is still formidable – other variations have followed each other over the past year, unable to surpass it. It could still happen here, for virological or immunological reasons that we do not yet know. So the standard public health advice still applies: try to strike a balance between panic and complacency.

Talk a little more about the delta. Are we in a better position to deal with omicron than when delta first appeared?

This time around, we feel like we are in a better position to understand and manage the threat, in part because Botswana and South Africa have an excellent proactive genomic surveillance infrastructure that has been put in place. in place in response to HIV / AIDS, and also because we have gleaned a lot of knowledge from previous variants. Add better treatment, widespread rapid testing, and much higher vaccination rates, and there are plenty of reasons we’re not getting back to square one because of the omicron.

Okay, but it looks like there’s a caveat coming here …

Well, on the other side of the equation is pandemic fatigue, heightened political polarization over the pandemic, and an information environment dominated by some of the dumbest takes imaginable (I’m looking at you, Covid immunity parties). Thus, in addition to perhaps more formidable changes, there are still many obstacles to a meaningful societal response.

In the future, will we be trapped in an endless groundhog day of new variations? Will there really be a “post-COVID” world?

I know this is not satisfactory, but yes and no. This virus is going to be with us for the foreseeable future and new variants are inevitable. But repeated exposure to this virus, through vaccination and / or infection, will mean that most people will be significantly less exposed over time. When exactly? Not clear. All herd immunity shots from 2020 have proven to be woefully inaccurate, so speculating with specificity is probably a wild ride.

But many people have already moved on to “living with the virus” in a sort of “pre-post-Covid” world. For communities, the main question remains: when will this virus stop wreaking havoc on health systems and causing catastrophic spikes in mortality? We are clearly not there yet. And we’re not just going to wake up one day and be there. The most likely scenario is that we gradually move from an emergency to a long-term disease management posture, with most of us living with the virus most of the time, sometimes having to adjust our behavior during peaks (i.e. testing, etc.) while recognizing the threat to the most vulnerable populations.

Is there anything else that you think is important in this story that is not being handled properly?

Public health policy is about compromise. There is seldom a purely good option on the table, it is almost always a question of making the least bad choice in a very uncertain and fluid information environment. Omicron is a perfect example. We will know more in the coming weeks. As we do, we will need to find the best approach to vaccination, travel, indoor congregation, etc., recognizing that all of these decisions will have negative consequences.

Companies will have to have tough conversations about tradeoffs whether they like it or not. Communities and leaders who recognize the challenges of a complex and uncertain environment will fare better: they will have the fewest people jumping out the window in panic, or listening to their uncle’s 5G shaman on 48-Chan tell them that sniffing bath salts is actually the best protection against COVID.

Again, this is about compromise.

Ok, noted on the bath salts, thanks Scott.

Scott Rosenstein is Special Advisor to the Eurasia Group, Global Health.