As a covid-hassled world started to savour the fragrance of freedom with significant vaccination and natural immunisation after subclinical exposure, the virus maliciously changed its ‘colours’. Much to the dismay of the confined mankind, the ‘killer’ Delta was followed by the Omicron and threatened to wrest back normality.
The science of Covid struck back with a vengeance.
‘The numerous mutations in its spike protein that had taken place in such a short time frame could potentially impact the effectivity of current vaccines’ was a major concern with a set of Newsroom editors. Another set of equally knowledgeable editors expressed anxiety that this mutant could well escape the T-cell immunity that a Covid infection evoked. Though virologists themselves advocated caution till they achieved a degree of certainty, the cat had been set among the pigeons.
Deep concern for humanity is a common commentarial trait and a pandemic is as good an opportunity as one will find in one’s career. “Though the HIV Protease Inhibitors Lopinavir/Ritonavir have been somewhat effective, Omicron needs to be dealt with Molnupiravir (Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics) which reduces death and hospitalisation rates by nearly 30%”, commented a professional Samaritan. The next do-gooder expressed the apprehension that possibility of the mutant eluding the protection offered by existing vaccines was real and reinfections posed a significant threat.
Then came the view that a booster was the only answer as Omicron had displayed ability to escape the standard 2-dose vaccines and had begun to infect even those who had suffered before. The booster proponents were severely castigated by another set who questioned their profligacy when the vast humanity still awaited its first shot, let alone the second. They vigorously pointed to the abysmal vaccine coverage in Africa and urged the first world to pay immediate attention to those deprived populations.
Fashionably fastidious fraternity
New vaccines were being pushed through even as fashionably fastidious fraternity advises deliberation and restraint. While these ambers of controversy are still smouldering, there is another woke set that has emphasised the need for children’s vaccination since schools are an ecosystem where contact is close and prolonged.
Even as this battle rages on the scientific front, another flares up on the political, with threats of debilitating lockdowns looming. That is one blunt instrument that contains the spread of virus with deadly certainty, never mind that it also devastates the wage-earners and informal economy with equally deadly certainty. Green shoots of an economic recovery that had begun to manifest risk being crushed under the unsparing boots of harsh restrictions.
Readers will agree that this is one depressing quagmire and gives everyone a sinking feeling. Proteins on the viral spikes or at their bases, antivirals in the form of Ritonavir or Molnupiravir, innumerable vaccines that neutralise the virus’s protein or fiddle with functioning of its mRNA, vaccine boosters or not, for whom and when, to the vulnerable elderly or unvaccinated children, enforced lockdowns or lockups for the violators, limited travel or severe curbs on movement; these questions have no easy answers as they further convolute a complexity.
One is reminded of Occam’s Razor, the principle of Parsimony, which states that ‘Simplest solution is almost always the best’. My greatest advantage is that I possess only a modest intellect that seeks simple and practical solutions. I realise that we in the UAE are fortunate to have a robust universal vaccination program that now also provides for a booster with an easy access to a high-quality vaccine. All I have to do act sensibly and do what I have been doing for a year and half, just wear a mask and keep a safe distance.
Dr Rakesh Maggon is a specialist ophthalmologist with an interest in literature
