Omicron has changed the shape of the pandemic. Will it end it for good?

 

The world feared the worst when a worrying new coronavirus variant emerged in late November and ripped through South Africa at a pace not seen before in the pandemic.

But two months later, with Omicron dominant across much of the globe, the narrative has shifted for some.

"Levels of concern about Omicron tend to be lower than with previous variants," Simon Williams, a researcher in public attitudes and behaviors towards Covid-19 at Swansea University, told CNN. For many, "the 'fear factor of Covid' is lower," he said.

Omicron's reduced severity compared to previous variants, and the perceived likelihood that individuals will eventually be infected, have contributed to that relaxation in people's mindsets, Williams said. This has even caused some people to actively seek out the illness to "get it over with" -- a practice experts have strongly warned against.

But some within the scientific community are cautiously optimistic that Omicron could be the pandemic's last act -- providing huge swathes of the world with "a layer of immunity," and moving us closer to an endemic stage when Covid-19 is comparable to seasonal illnesses like the cold or flu.

"My only view is that it's becoming endemic, and it will continue to stay endemic for some time -- as has happened with other coronaviruses," said David Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

"All viruses try to become endemic, and to me this one looks like it's succeeding," he said.

 

Covid-19 has evolved with great unpredictability, and the variant that superseded Delta could have been more sinister, experts say; but the world ultimately got a dominant strain that is sweeping through populations with ease, without causing the same degree of hospitalizations, severe illnesses and deaths that previous variants have done.

Experts caution that there may be setbacks along the way -- just as Omicron's make-up was unexpected, the next variant could present a more serious public health risk and delay the end of the pandemic.

And many countries, particularly where vaccination coverage is low, could still face overwhelmed hospitals due to the current Omicron wave.

But a political urgency is appearing in much of the West to return societies to a sense of normality -- with the transmissibility of Omicron forcing leaders to choose between rolling back public health measures or seeing their workforces and economies risk grinding to a standstill.

And for the first time since the spread of Covid-19 stunned the world in early 2020, some epidemiologists and leaders are willing to entertain the prospect that the virus might be making steps toward endemic status.

'The rules of the game have changed'

The question that scientists and wider society will grapple with throughout 2022 is when Covid-19 will leave its current stage and enter endemicity.

A disease that is endemic has a constant presence in a population but does not affect an alarmingly large number of people or disrupt society, as typically seen in a pandemic.

Experts don't expect Covid to fully disappear in any of our lifetimes. Instead, it will eventually reach a period similar to several other illnesses, where "most people will be infected as children, possibly multiple times, and as those infections accumulate, they build up an immunity," according to Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh and the author of a book about the early stages of the pandemic.

"That's the situation we're heading towards," he said. "Omicron is another dose of virus. We will all be on average less susceptible to disease having had that dose, or having had the vaccine."

That's why Omicron's reduced severity is so key -- it adds an extra layer of immunity, but doesn't come with the same risk of hospitalization that Covid-19 held for most of last year. Omicron is associated with a two-thirds reduction in the risk of hospitalization compared to Delta, according to a Scottish study. A separate paper from South Africa put the same figure at 80%.

"Well over half the world has now got some exposure to the virus or the vaccine. The rules of the game have changed from the virus's point of view," Woolhouse said.

 

And underlining experts' confidence is history -- though comparing the current scenario to previous pandemics is not an exact science, there is evidence from the past that viruses can be expected to evolve into less severe versions and eventually disappear into the arsenal of annual colds and influenzas.

"There are four other coronaviruses that have become endemic," Heymann said. "The natural history of infections" indicates that Covid-19 will be the fifth, he added.

"People have reinterpreted 'Russian flu' in the late 19th century as the emergence of a common cold-type coronavirus," added Woolhouse, referring to the 1889-90 outbreak that is estimated to have killed around a million people, but which ultimately became a common cold.

"The 'Spanish Flu' basically gave the whole world a very nasty dose of an H1N1 influenza virus" in 1918, he said. Now, "we get a wave of that virus pretty much every year."

Experts generally agree that Omicron moves us closer to that stage with Covid-19. But there is a big caveat that determines how fast we'll get there -- and it depends not on the current strain, but the one that comes next.

"It is an open question as to whether or not Omicron is going to be the live virus vaccination that everyone is hoping for, because you have such a great deal of variability with new variants emerging," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday.

"I would hope that that's the case," Fauci told the Davos Agenda, a virtual event this week held by the World Economic Forum, mirroring the cautious optimism that many epidemiologists are expressing. He added that the world was "fortunate" that Omicron didn't share more of Delta's characteristics.

But for all the positive indications, it "doesn't mean a new variant won't come up and force us backwards," Woolhouse said.

"I would not like to call which way the next (variant) would go, he added. "The next variant has to outcompete Omicron, and the main thing it will have to be able to do is evade natural immunity, and to evade vaccine-induced immunity," he said. "What we can't say in advance is how bad (it) will be."

An arms race towards endemicity

Epidemiologically speaking, Omicron has delivered some cause for optimism -- but much depends on how the virus evolves from here.

Pandemics do not move merely with the whims of a virus, however; they are also directed by human behavior and political acts. And as the pandemic's two-year anniversary in March edges closer, signs are emerging of an arms race towards endemicity.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who presided over one of the West's most effective vaccination rollouts, told radio station Cadena Ser earlier this month that it's time "to evaluate the evolution of Covid from pandemic to an endemic illness." His health minister said she has put that viewpoint to fellow European Union leaders.

Britain's education secretary Nadhim Zahawi, who previously oversaw the UK's vaccine rollout, added to Sky News that he wanted the UK to "demonstrate to the world how you transition from pandemic to endemic."

And that move is already well underway in countries such as Denmark, where Covid rules were ditched and then re-introduced last year. Tyra Grove Krause, an official at the Statens Serum Institut (SSI) that deals with infectious diseases in the country, told local network TV2 this month that Omicron could "lift us" out of the pandemic and return Danes to normalcy within two months.

"Those governments that have achieved a high degree of population immunity through the privilege of vaccination or the burden of infection now have a wider range of choices than they did at the start of 2021," said Thomas Hale, associate professor at Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government, and the academic lead of its Covid-19 Government Response Tracker.

Many countries are starting to act as if Covid is already endemic. England resisted new restrictions despite record-breaking infection figures in recent weeks, and though hospitalizations and deaths have risen, its health care sector appears to have survived the peak of the Omicron wave without recording the high admissions seen during previous variants.

 

Early real-world examples like this could give other nations the confidence to strip back restrictions and, as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson proposed this month, "ride out" the Omicron wave. "Many countries have looked to the UK, because they see that the UK has some degree of permissibility" in restrictions, Heymann said.

That approach is quickly becoming more commonplace. Covid-related financial aid is soon set to end in France as restrictions are eased; "We are announcing [to people in France] that the pandemic will perhaps be behind us by mid-February," French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced Thursday.

Driving this push is the ravaging impact that Omicron is having on essential workforces -- a development that has changed the calculus of governments. Faced with dilemma of tackling transmission or keeping their countries running, leaders have swiftly moved to slash isolation periods.

"Clearly taking people out of the workforce -- particularly schools and healthcare -- is one costly impact," of Omicron, Hale said. "Of course it is preferable to prevent widespread transmission in the first place, though for many countries now facing Omicron this point is now moot."

That means that an increasing number of countries are looking to "transfer the risk assessment to their populations," Heymann said -- relaxing rules and encouraging self-testing, personal decisions on mask-wearing, and even individual assessments among infected people of how long they need to isolate.

Many experts still encourage restrictions to reduce transmission, at least while the Omicron wave is with us. But Williams noted that populations are increasingly moving away from that view.

"The way Omicron has been represented in some media reports, and even indirectly by some politicians -- who were a bit too quick to emphasize the 'we need to learn to live with it' message -- have contributed to this now quite widespread view that Omicron is less worrisome," he said.

The problem with that approach, many warn, is that some parts of the world are less able to take on a relaxed approach.

"By definition a pandemic is not over until it's over, for everyone, everywhere," Williams said. "Our attention now should increasingly focus on getting enough vaccines to those in low- and middle-income countries."

Vaccination coverage is lower in many poorer regions of the world -- particularly in eastern Europe, central Asia and large parts of Africa -- leaving those places especially susceptible to worrying new variants or more severe waves of hospitalizations.

"A pandemic has various components to it in various countries," Heymann said. "I think countries will become endemic at different rates."

And that adds an extra layer of uncertainty to the question of whether Omicron will hasten the end of the pandemic.

"Health systems around the world will have to be cognizant" of the risks of Covid even if it soon starts to act and feel more like a seasonal cold, Woolhouse said.

"The world has changed -- there's a new human pathogen there, and it's going to continue to cause disease for the foreseeable future," he concluded. "We were always going to be living with Covid. it was never going to go away -- we knew this from February 2020."

"What we didn't know, and still don't fully, is exactly what that looks like."

 

Emirates president: The 5G snafu is the biggest screwup I've witnessed in my career

The president of Emirates tells CNN that the airline was not aware of some of the potential 5G rollout issues until yesterday morning, calling the situation "one of the most delinquent, utterly irresponsible" he has seen in his aviation career.

Major international airlines are scrambling to modify or cancel flights to the United States amid uncertainty about potential interference between new 5G cell phone services and critical airplane technologies. Emirates has canceled flights to nine US destinations today.

Speaking to CNN's Richard Quest today, Emirates president Tim Clark said that they were not aware of the issues until yesterday morning "to the extent that it was going to compromise the safety of operation of our aircraft and just about every other 777 operator to and from the United States and within the United States."

Transportation regulators had already been concerned that the version of 5G that was scheduled to be switched on could interfere with some airplane instruments, and many aviation industry groups shared those fears — despite reassurances from federal telecom regulators and wireless carriers.

Specifically, the Federal Aviation Administration has been worried that 5G cellular antennas near some airports — not air travelers' mobile devices — could throw off readings from some aircraft equipment designed to tell pilots how far they are from the ground. Those systems, known as radar altimeters, are used throughout a flight and are considered critical equipment. (Radar altimeters differ from standard altimeters, which rely on air pressure readings and do not use radio signals to gauge altitude.)

In December, the FAA issued an urgent order forbidding pilots from using the potentially affected altimeters around airports where low-visibility conditions would otherwise require them. That new rule could keep planes from getting to some airports in certain circumstances, because pilots would be unable to land using instruments alone.

"We were aware of a 5G issue. Okay. We are aware that everybody is trying to get 5G rolled out after all it's the super cool future of whatever it may be communication and information flow. We were not aware that the power of the antennas in the United States have been doubled compared to what's going on elsewhere. We were not aware that the antenna themselves have been put into a vertical position rather than a slight slanting position, which then taken together compromise not only the radio altimeter systems but the flight control systems on the fly by wire aircraft. So on that basis we took that decision late last night to suspend all our services until we had clarity," he added, telling Richard Quest the airline wouldn't take any risks.

When asked on what he makes of the situation, Clark said: "I need to be as candid as I normally am, and say this is one of the most delinquent, utterly irresponsible issue subjects, call it what you like, I've seen in my aviation career because it involves organs of government, manufacturers, science, etc. And you know, the notion that, for instance, the United States government should sell its franchise for all the frequencies for a large amount of money. Somebody should have told them at the time - that the risks and the dangers they placed in certain frequency uses around field, airfields, metropolitan fields that should have been done at the time."

The Emirates president added that services will be restored if the rollout is suspended and the question of interference of their aircraft systems on approach and landing is removed.

AT&T, which owns CNN's parent company, and Verizon both announced Tuesday that they would delay activating 5G on some towers around certain airports. The wireless technology's rollout near major airports had been scheduled for Wednesday.

"We are frustrated by the FAA's inability to do what nearly 40 countries have done, which is to safely deploy 5G technology without disrupting aviation services, and we urge it do so in a timely manner," Megan Ketterer, a spokesperson for AT&T, said.

The Biden administration welcomed the delay, saying in a statement that the "agreement will avoid potentially devastating disruptions to passenger travel, cargo operations, and our economic recovery, while allowing more than 90% of wireless tower deployment to occur as scheduled."

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Discovery of enormous coral reef in Pacific shows how much we still need to learn about the oceans

 

Discovery of enormous coral reef in Pacific shows how much we still need to learn about the oceans

Enormous 'twilight zone' coral reef discovered off the coast of Tahiti

Deep in the ocean off the coast of Tahiti, scientists made an incredible discovery in November: acres of giant, pristine, rose-shaped corals blossoming from the sea floor in what's known as the ocean's "twilight zone."

That a coral reef so large and so beautiful had yet to be discovered emphasizes how little we still know about the world's oceans, scientists say. And its impeccable condition -- with no evidence that the reef has yet been harmed by the climate crisis -- suggests the need for urgent action to protect the ocean's remaining healthy reefs.

Alexis Rosenfeld, the photojournalist who led the team of international divers, said the reef, which stretched "as far as the eye can see," was "magical to witness."

"It was like a work of art," he said.

A diver swims above a coral reef found off the coast of Tahiti in November.

 A detailed view of coral from the reef.

The research mission, led by UNESCO, found the reef stretches for nearly two miles and exists at depths down to 70 meters, or 230 feet. This is around the ocean's "twilight zone," where there's just enough light to sustain life, and below which the ocean transitions into a dark abyss.

"For once, it's a positive story about coral reefs in the news, which is quite rare these days," Julian Barbiere, head of marine policy at UNESCO, told CNN.

Warming oceans and acidification caused by the climate crisis has led to widespread coral bleaching. Last year, scientists found the global extent of living coral has declined by half since 1950 due to climate change, overfishing and pollution.

The outlook is similarly grim, with scientists predicting about 70% to 90% of all living coral will disappear in the next 20 years.

Only around 20% of the ocean floor has so far been mapped, according to UNESCO. And until its latest discovery, the vast majority of the planet's known coral ecosystems were believed to extend to a depth of just 25 meters, illustrating how much of the ocean -- which covers more than 70% of Earth's surface -- still needs to be explored.

"The discovery suggests that there are, in fact, many more large reefs out in our ocean at depths of more than 30 meters, which have not been mapped," Barbiere said. "It's quite a puzzling finding."

The dive team was able to spend about 200 hours studying the reef using specialized scuba equipment called rebreathers.

 

Coral reefs are an important food source and habitat for a wide array of marine organisms, such as the fish seen here.

"While we are witnessing major investment in space exploration, there's not enough on studying our own home and the ocean in particular," Barbiere said. "And I think this is really where we want to put our emphasis in the next 10 years -- to create the knowledge we need to put the planet on the sustainable path through marine protected areas."

Despite its depth, researchers say the newly discovered reef still receives enough sunlight for the corals to grow and reproduce. Some of the divers even witnessed the corals spawning.

Researchers went into the mission in November last year with little knowledge of the reefs existing in the region, and came out with an incredible understanding of how widespread, unique and pristine the coral there is.

Depsite its depth, the reef still receives enough sunlight for the corals to grow and reproduce.

A researcher swims above the reef, which stretches for nearly two miles.

Using scuba rebreathers, which filter carbon dioxide out of exhaled air and recycle much of the unused oxygen, the dive team was able to spend about 200 hours studying the reef. Rebreathers allow divers to go deeper into the ocean floor and stay for longer periods of time. The rebreathers contain a special helium-based gas mixture that guards against narcosis or a state of drowsiness.

Barbiere said researchers were surprised to learn that the coral was fully intact and healthy, a sign they've survived for decades, given large reefs take roughly 25 to 30 years to expand and flourish.

The UNESCO team plans to study the reef more to learn how the coral has thrived for so long in the face of increasingly hostile ocean conditions, in hopes that it may hold the secret to saving endangered reefs.

"We think that deeper reefs may be better protected from global warming," said Laetitia Hédouin, a marine biologist with the French National Centre of Scientific Research and the environmental research center CRIOBE. "So the discovery of this reef in such a pristine condition is good news and can inspire future conservation." 

The reef exists in what's known as the ocean's "twilight zone."

Coral reefs under threat

Coral reefs are crucial to Earth's biodiversity. They are an important food source, as well as habitat, for a wide array of marine organisms. But human-caused climate change threatens these ecosystems around the globe.

Roughly 4,000 miles west of Tahiti, off the coast of Australia, the Great Barrier Reef -- the largest reef system in the world -- has suffered several large-scale coral bleaching events over the past two decades due to extreme ocean warming. A 2021 study found 98% of the reef had been impacted by bleaching since 1998. And despite having adapted to higher heat thresholds, the study found the corals now have less time to recover between more frequent bleaching events.

Though the Tahiti reef appears healthy right now, there's still concern that the effects of climate change will reach it, said Steven Mana'oakamai Johnson, a postdoctoral research scholar and marine scientist at Arizona State University.

"Just because the reef currently doesn't show any impacts from climate change, it doesn't mean that's going to hold into the future," Johnson told CNN. "And so we can't just assume that because no one knew it was there, and when we found it, it was in good shape that it will continue to dodge the proverbial climate bullets."

Rose-shaped corals blossom from the sea floor off the coast of Tahiti.

 

Fish swim in the reef.

Johnson's recent research found that 60% to 87% of the world's oceans are expected to experience devastating biological and chemical changes, including higher levels of acidity and shifts in oxygen levels by 2060, which would drastically harm the planet's vast coral reefs.

In a special report on oceans in 2019, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with high confidence that the impact on marine ecosystems will worsen if fossil fuel emissions continue at-pace.

Even if global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius -- the ideal goal of the Paris Agreement -- "coral reefs are projected to suffer significant losses of area and local extinctions," scientists reported, noting that efforts to restore them will likely be futile at that point, given the enormous stress they are already under.

"The big takeaway is that [the UNESCO team] found this track of reef that's in good condition, which definitely speaks to how little we've done to truly map the ocean," said Johnson, who is not involved with the research. "This emphasizes the importance of passing meaningful climate policy including finding ways to support the traditional stewards of these oceanscapes."

 A group of researchers examine the reef.

The coral in the reef was found to be healthy, with no sign that they had yet been affected by the increasing stress of the climate crisis.

Barbiere said more expeditions have been planned for the coming months to investigate the reef, particularly to study how it has thrived around the ocean's twilight zone.

An international network of governments, ocean scientists and volunteers are on a mission to map the world's seabed by 2030 to better understand not only the impacts of the climate crisis, but to improve tsunami warning systems. Studying the ocean, according to Barbiere, could lead to similar discoveries at deeper depths that would require more extensive protection.

"You can only protect what you can measure," Barbiere said. "And as we are trying to set targets for global ocean conservation around the world, this is the basic information that we need to start establishing marine protected areas."

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Biden administration asks Supreme Court to let it end Trump-era 'Remain in Mexico' immigration policy

 

The Biden administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court for permission to end the Trump-era "remain in Mexico" program, which requires non-Mexican migrants to stay in Mexico until their US immigration court dates.

In August, a federal judge in Texas ordered the revival of the policy after the Department of Homeland Security attempted to end the program. An appeals court also ruled against the administration, which began to re-implement the program earlier this month.

Under former President Donald Trump, thousands of migrants were subject to the program, formally known as Migrant Protection Protocols, which has resulted in people living in makeshift camps along Mexico's northern border, often in squalor and dangerous conditions.

"In short, the lower courts have commanded DHS to implement and enforce the short-lived and controversial MPP program in perpetuity. And they have done so despite determinations by the politically accountable Executive Branch that MPP is not the best tool for deterring unlawful migration; that MPP exposes migrants to unacceptable risks; and that MPP detracts from the Executive's foreign-relations efforts to manage regional migration," the administration wrote to the justices.

The filing also requests that the Supreme Court review the case this term, arguing that the appeals court ruling threatens to disrupt other cases where the government's policies on issues like immigration detention and parole are challenged.

"Delaying review until next Term would likely postpone resolution of those critical issues until sometime in 2023. In the meantime, the government would be forced to continue negotiating with Mexico to maintain a controversial program that it has already twice determined is no longer in the best interests of the United States," the filing reads.

The Supreme Court previously denied a request from the administration that the program's revival remain on hold while the case was appealed.

When the federal appeals court blocked President Joe Biden's attempt to end the immigration program, it said the administration's efforts did not comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, which sets out specific processes that agencies must go through in unveiling new policies. The court also said the effort violated an immigration law that says noncitizens "shall" be detained or returned to the countries from where they arrived while their immigration proceedings move forward.

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