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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m RJ - this is 7am.

For months scientists have been warning us that if global vaccination rates didn’t lift - new, potentially more dangerous, strains of Covid-19 could emerge.

Now it looks like their fears might have been realised - with the new omicron variant.

Today, senior reporter for The Saturday Paper Rick Morton on the threat posed by the Omicron variant and how vaccine hoarding by rich nations is helping prolong the pandemic.

It’s Thursday, December 2.

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RUBY:

Rick, it was back in February of 2020 that you and I first spoke about Covid-19 on 7am. We have had many conversations about the pandemic since that moment, but lately it has felt like things have been returning to normal in the last few days, though that is seemingly under threat. There's a new variant Omicron. Many people are worried. So what's going on? What do we know?

RICK:

So Omicron is a new variant of COVID 19, and we've had a number of them over the past 18 months, so that's nothing special about that. Of course, we all know the Delta variant is the one that's most concerned us so far. And you know, these variants, particularly Delta, force most of the country into lockdowns this year because of just how transmissible it was.

But according to the president of pharmaceutical giant Moderna, Stephen Hogue, this new variant is a Frankenstein mix of all the greatest hits, right? Which is why it's triggered everyone's alarm bells.

Now it's named after the Greek Leno and omicron was classified as a variant of concern officially by the World Health Organisation last week and it first emerged in southern Africa and it it seems to be spreading fast. Certainly, it's popped up in a few places now.

Archival tape -- News report:

“Scientists in South Africa are warning against a new coronavirus variant of extreme concern. The new variant has also surfaced in neighbouring Botswana, Hong Kong and Israel.”

RICK:

So already on the current account for most of the 2300 new daily cases in the province of how telling South Africa.

Archival tape -- News report:

“The strain has a high number of mutations and is already spreading rapidly in South Africa”

RICK:

where new infections have more than tripled in the past week.

Archival tape -- News report:

“Cases, there surging from 100 to more than 1000 per day.”

RICK:

In response to this, most countries, including Australia, went into autopilot and shut their borders to the eight southern African countries.

Archival tape -- News report:

“The US, Canada, Europe and Israel joined the UK in restricting travel from six affected countries.”

Archival tape -- News report:

“Japan joins Israel and Morocco in sealing its borders to all foreigners.”

Archival tape -- News report:

“The federal and state governments are moving quickly to restrict international arrivals in the wake of the Omicron variant...”

RICK:

But since then, the Omicron variant was also detected in Israel in Hong Kong and a half dozen European countries, including the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands.

And it's also now appeared in Australia as well.

Archival tape -- News report:

“A woman spending time in Sydney and on NSW Central Coast before testing positive for Omicron.”

RUBY:

Right so we’re seeing more cases pop up - here in Australia. The government has already shut borders to some countries - what else is it doing?

RICK:

So yeah, we were meant to open our international border on December one.

Archival tape -- Greg Hunt:

“We’re here to give you a brief update on the latest actions in relation to the omicron variant.”

RICK:

But that's now being delayed by at least two weeks.

Archival tape -- Greg Hunt:

“We're doing this out of an abundance of caution, but our overwhelming view is that whilst it's an emerging variant, it's a manageable variant.”

RICK:

So what was going to happen, of course, was that international students and visa holders and other types of, I think, economic workers, it's the Home Affairs Minister called them, we're going to be allowed into the country that's now not going to happen until December 15, at least.

RUBY:

Ok - so the world is taking the Omicron variant seriously. Can you tell me more Rick though about why we’re seeing this response? What is it about this particular mutation that makes it a variant of concern? What is it about this mutation, specifically?

RICK:

So the really spectacular thing about this mutation, this new variant is that there are 30 mutations of the spike protein, which is the bit that causes most of the problems with COVID 19. Twenty six of those seem to be unique. And to put that into perspective, Delta has about 10 mutations and Beta has six.

Now, the problem with that is that our COVID vaccines work by training the body to look out for certain viruses, and there's a bit of flexibility built in the different formations of the same virus structure.

But if the virus has mutated too much, say there were many changes to the spike protein, which is what we're seeing now, then the body's immune system may no longer recognise the virus as a threat, or it means that the vaccines won't work as well.

Archival tape -- Dr Angelique Coetzee:

“So at this stage what we are observing is mild cases.”

RICK:

Now the good news is that the first South African doctor to raise the alarm about patients with the Omicron variant, Dr Angelique Curtsey, said that while the variant might be more infectious, the symptoms seem mild so far.

Archival tape -- Dr Angelique Coetzee:

“So mild cases again, easily treated at home. The cases that we have seen last week and the week before last week also mild cases.”

RICK:

So cling on to that little bit of hope.

And of course, as we mentioned, vaccines are still an effective way to ward off severe illness and death, although of course booster doses may be needed to protect more people or the, you know, the largest number of people.

RUBY:

Mm hmm. OK, so understanding all of that? How worried do you think that we should be about Omicron?

RICK:

Do you want my personal view or do you want my reporter view? My personal view is there's no point stressing about something that you can't control,

The reportage answer is it's too early to tell. It really is.

Now, we should take some comfort in the fact that here in Australia, we've currently got about 85. In fact, I think it's 87 percent now double dose for people over 12.

Now we're also rolling out our booster programme, which will further fortify people's defences and people who are immunocompromised have already had or are still getting their third booster doses. I know a lot of people who have had their third shots over the last couple of months, actually. So that's the good news.
But there are people in other countries with far lower vaccine rates, and for them, this variant poses a significant risk.

The irony of the situation, of course, is that it's these places with low vaccination rates thanks to rich countries kind of hogging the vaccine that is the likely cause of this mutation in the first place because it's the vaccination rate if it's too low, you are guaranteeing that you're going to get a new variant of this virus. That's just the way viruses work.

And so that is what we're dealing with here. It's the low vaccination rates that have created this problem, and that's on all of us.

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Rick, when we talk about low vaccination rates in some countries - how low are we talking?

RICK:

Yeah, so director general of the World Health Organisation Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a global pandemic, none of us will be safe until everyone is safe. And so the WHO set the benchmark for every country to vaccinate at least 40 per cent of its people by the end of 2021, by the end of this year and in most high income countries, if we've cleared that, that's rates average 61 per cent right now. But in Africa, it's a completely different story. Only nine countries have vaccinated 10 or more per cent of their populations, and perhaps most concerning is that almost half of the countries in Africa have a vaccination rate below two percent.

RUBY:

Why is that the case Rick? Why are vaccination rates that low? Is this a supply issue?

RICK:

So obviously, countries were doing their own deals with pharmaceutical companies about vaccines, and it is estimated that up to 70 per cent of all vaccines that were produced in 2021 this year were pre-booked by just a handful of countries.

So when vaccines began to be distributed, we were seeing millions of doses administered every week in richer countries, but no vaccines at all, making their way to low income countries. In fact, some countries were beginning to roll out boosters and vaccinating children before many low income countries have even given their adults a first dose.

So the vaccination rate gap between low income and high income countries began to grow and grow and grow.

RUBY:

Mm-Hmm. And Australia is one of those rich countries. We're also a country that has high vaccination rates. So what should we be doing here to try and address this inequality?

RICK:

Well, we should be distributing more vaccines. We've given some to Fiji and in our region, of course, But you know, you might remember that a few months ago, the federal government announced that we were closing down domestic AstraZeneca manufacturing

Archival tape -- News report:

“It was supposed to be our Australia made vaccines that would protect the vast majority of us from Covid - AstraZeneca.”

RICK:

And we discarded millions of AstraZeneca vaccines because people wanted to shop around.

Archival tape -- News report:

“But the jab that saved the United Kingdom will no longer be produced in Melbourne because Pfizer and Moderna is what most people want.”

RICK:

They didn't think it was a good enough vaccine, despite all the evidence pointing to the fact that it was, in fact, it might have even been better than Pfizer, at least.

RUBY:

Right, OK, so it seems really like there are a few different ways that wealthy countries places, including Australia, have contributed to this vaccine inequality. Can you tell me the result of that - developing nations having very low vaccination rates - is actually leading to the creation of more variants like Omicron?

RICK:

So if you've got a virus and it's moving through populations around the world, the more people that are seen fix, the more it has to copy its own genetic or RNA structure. And the more copies that take place, the more transcription errors happen in that copying process. And that's what we call a mutation.

Now what vaccinations do, of course, is limit that potential for change through limiting the potential for transmission and our absence of leadership in helping to vaccinate the world not just in Australia, but in most, if not all developed nations has directly contributed to the circumstance, which allows the virus to keep spreading at fast rates through unvaccinated populations. That is a recipe for allowing mutations to arrive.

RUBY:

Hmm. And Rick, we've all come to realise how futile it is to try and predict what will happen next in this pandemic, and we are still gathering information about this particular variant, we're still in the early days, but how likely do you think it is that we will be able to have some sort of normal 2022? Or is this a sign that the third year of COVID-19 might be just as difficult as the past two?

RICK:

Yeah, that's a very good question. You know, scientists have reacted more quickly to Omicron than to any other variant in just 36 hours from the first signs of trouble in South Africa. On Tuesday, researchers analysed samples from 100 infected patients. You know, that was extremely speedy response, but unfortunately, we won't know the results from this testing for at least two weeks.

Pfizer and Moderna are preparing, of course, to reformulate their shots if necessary. Pfizer has said that it can create a new vaccine to respond to this new variant in 100 days.

Now in Australia and in other wealthy countries with high rates of vaccination, we should be OK. We should be fine. There's no evidence yet that vaccines aren't effective against all Macron in terms of limiting serious illness in health. Let me say it again, no evidence yet that the vaccines are not effective. The one thing I would stress, I guess, is that the situation is a reminder that the pandemic isn't over in a global sense and we can't ignore the rest of the world.

If you don't vaccinate the world, you do not get out of this pandemic as easily as you otherwise might have.

RUBY:

Hmm. I suppose that's the point here, Rick, because as long as large parts of the world remain unvaccinated, it's likely that more variants will arrive that will keep going through the Greek alphabet like this.

RICK:

It's literally not just likely it's guaranteed.

It's a statistical analysis of how long it takes and how many places in the world are unvaccinated versus how long the virus is allowed to keep spreading. Before you get another variant.

Whether it's a variant of concern or not, the genetic structure of these viruses or the RNA structure, I should say, will keep changing. That's just a fact.

RUBY:

Rick, thank you so much for your time.

RICK:

Thanks, Ruby. Appreciate it.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

Australia has now recorded seven cases of the Omicron Covid-19 variant in total, six of which are in NSW.

In response to the spread of Omicron, NSW authorities have listed further exposure sites and announced an increase in penalties for Covid-19 non compliance.

But despite the rise in cases of the new variant, the NSW health minister Brad Hazzard said he and the Premier are “not keen to see a return to lockdown”.

And former Attorney General Christian Porter has announced he will be quitting Parliament at the next election.

Porter announced his resignation on Facebook, writing that he was quitting to spend more time with his family.

He was accused of raping a woman in 1988 - a claim he denied. He sued the ABC, who originally published the allegations for defamation, and ultimately discontinued the case.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, see you tomorrow.

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