Stock Markets Plunge, Travelers Pause, Omicrom Proliferates

 “Travel bans don’t work… They end up stigmatizing a country. The countries that isolated this virus and reported it are now going to get penalized for being transparent. What is the implication for future variants if people get punished this way with travel restrictions? We have tests, we have tools, so it’s not as if we’re helpless the way we were back in January of 2020.” Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

UPDATED 11/28/21 3:40 PM

Until it got its “Omicrom” Greek letter designation from World Health Organization, coronavirus variant B.1.1.529 had lots of names, depending on your country. The above graphic, generated in Australia for example, gave that variant the temporary “Botswana” COVID variant name. WHO, however, called it a variant “of concern.” So far, we really do not know much about this miscreant, but fears “of more pandemic-induced economic turmoil caused stocks to tumble in Asia, Europe and the U.S. The Dow Jones industrial average briefly dropped more than 1,000 points. The S&P 500 index closed down 2.3%, its worst day since February. The price of oil plunged about 13%.” Associated Press, November 27th.

While Omicrom seems to be significantly more contagious, that’s about the only symptom we have been able to observe… so far. But a super-microscopic view of the variant shows it just has too many nasties to be ignored. “What it has is a cluster of several mutations, more mutations than we’ve seen in that spike protein part of the coronavirus, and the spike protein is important because that’s what our vaccines target,” [says Dr.] Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security…That’s how the virus enters ourselves.” Yahoo!Finance, November 27th. 

We do not know if or to what extent the existing vaccines are effective or whether those who have recovered from COVID have appropriate resistance to the variant. Is it more deadly than the predominant Delta variant? Will it take over as the most prevalent strain of the disease? We probably will not begin to get sufficient answers for a few weeks, at the earliest. But there is usually an instantaneous and uniform international response when such new variants are first identified: travel bans.

“In response to the variant’s discovery in southern Africa, the United States, Canada, Russia and a host of other countries joined the European Union in restricting travel for visitors from that region, where the variant is linked to a fresh surge of infections… The White House said the U.S. will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other countries in the region beginning Monday [11/29]. Biden issued a declaration later Friday [11/26] making the travel prohibition official, with exceptions for U.S. citizens and permanent residents and for several other categories, including spouses and other close family.

“Medical experts, including the WHO, warned against overreaction before the variant was thoroughly studied. But a jittery world feared the worst after the tenacious virus triggered a pandemic that has killed more than 5 million people around the globe… ‘We must move quickly and at the earliest possible moment,’ British Health Secretary Sajid Javid told lawmakers… Omicron has now been seen in travelers to Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel, as well as in southern Africa… There was no immediate indication whether the variant causes more severe disease. As with other variants, some infected people display no symptoms, South African experts said.” AP. And Southern African countries also repeat that travel bans just do not work.

What should we do? “Dr. Lakshman Swamy, an ICU physician at Boston Medical Center, said that while there are reasons for concern, it’s not time to panic yet… [He asked] Will it hurt and kill a lot of people? And will current vaccines work against it?.. ‘I think we have nowhere near the numbers to know that right now,’ Swamy said, but added that concerns over the effectiveness of the vaccines are valid. ‘There’s reason to worry because of the new mutations in the spike protein… but there’s no reason to assume our vaccines won’t offer significant protection there.’

“The important caveat, though, is making sure everyone is vaccinated. Currently, 59.1% of those eligible in the U.S. are fully vaccinated while 69.7% have received at least one dose, as of Nov. 24. And, all three vaccines available in the country are now offering booster doses specifically tailored to the Delta variant.” Yahoo!Finance. A day after these announcements, countries – like Israel – were locking down, and cases of the variant were popping up all over the globe. Speaking on a morning talk show, US COVID Czar, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said that while we all must be prepared for whatever might come, it is too soon to talk about lockdowns here in the United States.

But the tens of millions of American vaccine skeptics coupled with misguided and clearly inaccurate statements from prominent American politicians from the Trump side of medical expertise, leave the field ripe for any powerful new variant to be realized and to spread right here in the United States. For those who believe that eliminating vaccine mandates and distancing restrictions are the only way for our economy fully to recover, just take a cold, hard, sobering and emotionally honest look at how our stock markets – our most reliable “business confidence real time” measurement – reacted at the news of the new variant. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and our efforts to contain the coronavirus and return as close to normalcy as we can are completely reliant on skeptics reversing their vaccine and mask resistance until the disease is fully and consistently curable without lingering aftereffects.