Writing only 4 days ago in the Solomon Times Online Samson Sade warned about the latest and 5th strain of Covid-19 and called Omicron.
Samson was right and Omicron is now in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and suspected in other smaller counties in Solomon Island’s regional neighbourhood.
Omicron is known to have many mutations that can allow it to spread fast into the cells of the body
So, concern and quick action by health authorities is warranted, including I would add for those still unvaccinated fully against Covid-19 in the Solomon Islands to do so as quickly as possible.
Australia delivered 50,000 AstraZeneka doses by air on 17 December. The additional 50,000 doses ensure the Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) has the supply it needs on hand as it continues the national vaccine roll-out.
Covid-19 is likely to remain the global community for a very long time and while it is around, the Solomon Islands is still not safe and so far the vaccination rates across the nation low. The likelihood of its international air borders being fully opened next year is unlikely.
Vaccination will protect you from ending up on one of the beds at the intensive care unit at the NRH where services are already fully stretched.
Experts agree that the global vaccination campaign has helped slow the mutations. But for those countries that have not achieved high levels of vaccination coverage, such as in the Solomon Islands, it is a potential disaster waiting to happen.
Today, Sunday, there are 55 new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand and five more cases of the Omicron variant in recent international arrivals, the Health Ministry has said.
The new Omicron cases in MIQ take New Zealand's total to 13.
Four of these cases remain in managed isolation. One person has now recovered and has been released.
The recovered case arrived from London via Singapore on 7 December. This case tested positive on day one and was closely managed in MIQ, the Ministry said in a statement.
Turning to the UK, a major incident has been declared in London and more than 10,000 new Omicron cases have been confirmed in the UK, as the variant surges across the country.
A further 90,418 daily Covid cases have been reported across the UK on Saturday, after days of record highs.
Cabinet ministers have been briefed on the latest Covid data.
London's mayor said he was "incredibly concerned" by the city's infection levels and the major incident was "a statement of how serious things are".
Saturday's data - which included the second-highest number of cases since mass testing began last year - also saw another 125 deaths recorded within 28 days of a positive test, down slightly on a week ago.
The World Health Organisation has said the Omicron variant has been identified in at least 89 countries - and is spreading significantly faster than the Delta strain.
It is spreading rapidly in countries with high levels of population immunity, it added.
Referring once more to the Covid pandemic situation in New Zealand, an article published in the medical journal ‘The Lancet’ last Friday. authorised by 15 current members of the World Health Organisation’s peak vaccine advisory group, noted that the recent emergence of Omicron as the fifth variation of concern has threatened confidence in vaccine protection.
Professor Peter McIntyre from the University of Otago, the lead author for the piece, says New Zealand needs to get its objective straight as it heads into 2022.
Quote
New Zealand has a lot to celebrate, he says. The strategy of elimination it pursued before the advent of vaccines was far and away the most effective, with death rates more than 100 times lower than many countries that opted for other strategies.
But it has meant New Zealand has had to rely on gaining high vaccine coverage rates because we had little immunity from the effects of Covid-19 so it is terrific that we are now the most vaccinated country in the world, Professor McIntyre says.
The important question now is where we want to get to, he says.
Covid-19 is a severe illness that hits elderly people and those with health problems particularly hard.
Our focus going forward needs to continue to be on those severe cases. If we over time end up with Covid circulating widely and causing, as the current corona viruses [do], ...they cause colds, about 20 percent of colds, it's just that we weren't testing for them...They've always been there, but they were mild and we didn't worry about them too much.
"So what our objective has to be is to tame Covid with vaccines into something that we are OK about because we know it's not going to send you to hospital or kill you."
It will take time for the country to move away from the pre-vaccine era where every case identified is treated as "a disaster".
There is still "an incredible intensity of testing" which has meant people going to hospital for other reasons have ending up being counted as Covid-19 positive cases.
"There is a need for a kind of shift. It's going to take a little while because people are understandably very nervous... But I think we do have to have a shift over time from focusing on every infection to saying: OK infection is here, we have to deal with it but what we really care about is ensuring we're protecting with anti-virals, boosters, with whatever we have got at our disposal, protecting people vulnerable still to severe illness."
Professor McIntyre says laboratory staff ”have been smashed" by the amount of testing they have to do for Covid-19 and sooner or later they will need to reduce this testing to allow a focus on other diseases.
New Zealand needs to keep the number of infections down, but we "don't need to be on the edge of our seats" about every case now that vaccines are widely available, he says.
McIntyre says the world is incredibly lucky to have seen the development of vaccines that work so well against severe disease.
End of quote.
Sources. Solomon Times on Line and Radio New Zealand.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
