Being COVID conscious important as Omicron variant spreads, says U of S microbiologist

As the COVID-19 Omicron variant sinks its teeth into Saskatchewan, the head of clinical microbiology at Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon says the variant can spread much faster than previous ones, like Delta.

Speaking with Gormley on Tuesday, Dr. Joseph Blondeau cited “R-naught” values, or how fast the disease can spread from person to person.

“The R-naught value for Delta was around one, or just above one. And for Omicron, (it) seems to be at four or just above four … That’s an epidemiological reference,” he explained.

That means if someone gets infected with the Delta variant, they will infect one additional person. With the Omicron variant, one person can potentially infect four others. Those four in turn then infect four others each.

“The numbers would increase exponentially and of course, that’s what we’re seeing globally with this current variant,” Blondeau said.

The encouraging information, according to Blondeau, is that Omicron usually hits the upper respiratory tract, like a seasonal cold, rather than the lungs, which is where previous COVID-19 variants have done the brunt of their damage.

Blondeau said the complication with Omicron lies in the numbers. With its ability to spread exponentially, it still has the ability to overwhelm health-care systems.

“Sure, a smaller percentage of people are likely to get more severe infection, but the number of people requiring hospitalization, it appears to have dropped from about 21 per cent to about four per cent with this variant,” he said.

Data from several countries so far shows fewer people are being hospitalized or needing intensive care at this point. Blondeau stressed getting fully vaccinated and boosted for those eligible is still extremely important.

“Having some level of immunity on board is probably tempering the significance of infection with this virus, at least in terms of severity,” Blondeau said, saying the worldwide push for vaccines has “clearly been the right strategy.”

Blondeau also said while children are unlikely to need to be hospitalized because of COVID-19, they can still become infected and infect others.

“That number (of hospitalizations among children) is not zero,” he said. “There have been children who have died as a result of COVID infections and there have been a number of children who are suffering from long COVID symptoms.”

Blondeau once again stated rapid antigen tests should be trusted and people should abide by the result as if it were a PCR test, regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms or not.