Omicron’s lightning speed demands urgent response

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/12/2021 (1528 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s no longer a question of if new restrictions will be announced to curb the spread of the Omicron variant, but when. Manitoba’s top doctor repeated several times during a news conference Wednesday that the province may have to bring in further measures.

The question is, why wait when hospitalizations and ICU admissions are already on the rise?

“We may have to do more,” said Dr. Brent Roussin, chief provincial public health officer, when asked to explain how current measures will slow the rapid spread of Omicron.

“We may have to pivot further. We may have to pivot quite quickly.”

So what’s the delay?

Roussin himself admits that even if the Omicron variant causes milder symptoms than previous strains, the sheer volume of cases Manitoba is now seeing will put unmanageable pressure on hospitals, including intensive care units.

“We have numbers that we’ve never seen before,” he said. “So even if it’s substantially less severe, the overall strains on the health-care system are still going to be too great for us to handle.”

Roussin repeated what he said earlier this week: Manitoba can’t rely on the possibility that Omicron is less severe.

“We need to decrease transmission and we need to decrease that transmission now and significantly,” said Roussin.

Whether he intended to or not, Roussin made a strong case for bringing in stricter measures now, not in a few days or next week. Current restrictions, including 50 per cent capacity limits in public places and a ban on large crowds, will not achieve what Roussin said is required. He knows that. Everyone knows it.

Under the status quo, Omicron will continue to spread at lightning speed and hospitalizations will reach unmanageable levels, driven largely by those who refuse to get vaccinated.

This isn’t just a public health decision, it’s a political one, too. Public health officials don’t make decisions in a vacuum, they make them in collaboration with elected officials. Premier Heather Stefanson, Health Minister Audrey Gordon and cabinet are ultimately responsible for ensuring adequate public health measures are in place. They have the final say, by law.

It’s also their duty to provide leadership. It’s not good enough for elected officials to sit back and wait for Roussin and his officials to make recommendations, especially during a public health emergency. The job of senior politicians is to ask questions, demand frequent and detailed briefings and make tough decisions.

The question Stefanson should be asking Roussin right now is why aren’t we acting sooner? What are the potential costs and benefits of waiting? If Roussin says publicly Manitoba needs to reduce transmissions “now” and “significantly,” Stefanson should demand scientific modelling that shows how current restrictions can achieve that. If the modelling doesn’t show that, even with good compliance from the public, the premier should demand public health officials immediately put a plan together that will reduce transmissions significantly. If she doesn’t, she isn’t doing her job.

Hospitalizations and ICU admissions are already on the rise, mostly among the unvaccinated. A week ago, there were 137 COVID-19 patients in hospital; on Wednesday there were 183. The number of COVID-19 patients in ICU has increased from 24 to 29 over the past week.

Over the past six weeks, 65 of 325,000 unvaccinated people were admitted to ICU. Of the 1.038 million Manitobans with two doses or more, only 22 were admitted to ICU. Adjusted for age, the unvaccinated were 26 times more likely to require critical care than fully vaccinated people, according to provincial data.

The evidence continues to be overwhelming that vaccination significantly reduces severe outcomes, including death. But with more than 300,000 Manitobans still not immunized, and with a variant spreading as quickly as Omicron is, higher hospital rates are unavoidable without further measures.

Most people will likely be infected with the Omicron variant over time. A small portion of those, mostly the unvaccinated, will end up in hospital or will die. The key is to spread those infections out over time so hospitals don’t collapse, as they did during the third wave. The only way to do that is through stricter public health measures.

Roussin knows that. He said as much on Wednesday.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca