Experts assess risk of Omicron subvariant as COVID-19 cases rise in parts of Asia, Europe

As COVID-19 cases push up in some parts of the world — like in areas of Europe and Asia — we’re asking experts how concerned we should be about the potential for a new wave of the virus here.

As an example, the World Health Organization has reported that new infections are up 29 percent in the Western Pacific Region from March 7-13, compared with the previous week. Deaths over that period are up 12 percent.

The feeling seems to be that we should be cautious given Omicron subvariant BA.2 is now taking hold, but the circumstances in Canada aren’t exactly the same to what’s happening in some of those countries.

One of the key differences here compared with China, which is locking down hard, is the type of vaccines in use.

In this country, most of us have received Pfizer or Moderna, which are largely effective against the subvariant of Omicron becoming dominant in China, points out Dr. Brian Conway with the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre.

“The Sinovac that was widely used in China is completely ineffective against Omicron, so it’s essentially an unvaccinated population,” Conway told CityNews in an interview. “Here in Canada, we’ve received mostly the mRNA vaccines.”

Dr. Allison McGeer, an Infectious Disease Consultant at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, believes what’s happening in northern Europe may be more important to watch, given greater similarities in terms of the rate and type of vaccination in that population.

“Denmark was well below us in terms of number of deaths from the pandemic, until a couple of weeks ago,” McGeer pointed out. “And now they’re close to where we are. That’s a lot of illness at the end of a pandemic.”

While public health bodies are dropping restrictions, Drs. Conway and McGeer urge us to take precautions in the weeks ahead.

But these experts agree that bringing back recently removed restrictions would not be an easy decision.

“Looking at other factors just beyond stopping the spread of the virus, it’s how the population survives undergoing these extreme lockdowns, and the loneliness,” Stephen Hoption Cann, a professor with UBC’s School of Population & Public Health. “We’ve had increasing overdose deaths here. There’s more to it than just stopping the virus that has to be considered. After two years, it’s a long time to be in lockdown.”

If governments have to once again step in and revisit some of those limitations, it would be an incredibly tough road, acknowledges McGeer. But she says if cases do rise in the coming weeks, she believes that will be down to an easing of restrictions, and not due to this subvariant’s increased transmissibility.

“I think the wave is more related to the release of public health restrictions, than it is to the new subvariant,” McGeer said of the rise in cases in Asia and parts of Europe. “We have not seen much change in Canada yet. When we were holding precautions we were up to 25 or 30 percent BA.2 in Ontario, and we didn’t see much change in the case rate. I think that the relaxation of public health restrictions will probably have to do more with [a new potential] wave.

“We keep talking about these waves as if they’re driven by the coronavirus, but the truth is we have control over them. It’s painful control, public health restrictions, but it is control. When we implement masking and distancing and reducing contacts, transmission slows down. And when we let it go, transmission speeds up again. I think it’s our actions that are doing this, not anything to do with BA.2 honestly.”