Omicron reveals East and West divide around living with COVID | Coronavirus pandemic News

Hwaseong, South Korea – Omicron reveals the East-West divide between the governments that decide to stop the spread of the variant and those that see the spread as inevitable and even necessary.

While some Western countries support the spread of Omicron as a stepping stone to living with the virus, Asian economies are tightening their borders and tightening countries to keep their distance.

Divergent paths come from a growing consensus that the variant is far away Less likely to cause serious illness and death than Delta variants, a feature that has spread much faster than the previous ones, a feature that has put pressure on hospitals and exacerbated the shortage of health workers.

Although many countries tightened their borders when the Omicron variant first appeared in November, the authorities introduced it. Asia has shown little reluctance to ease the cuts despite high vaccination rates and growing evidence of the lower severity of Omicron.

“Omicron is difficult to handle,” infection expert Kentaro Iwata Kobe University told Al Jazeera. “It’s easy to spread, but it doesn’t pose a major threat to the individual, for the most part. However, if the denominator becomes too large to handle, then the numerator will also be relatively large. “

In Hong Kong, which has pursued a stern “zero Covid” stance on mainland China, authorities on Thursday banned flights from eight countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, doubling the border restrictions that have made it one of the international financial hubs. the most isolated cities in the world. Authorities also imposed strict social exclusion rules, including forcing bars and gyms to close and banning restaurant canteens from 6 p.m.

In mainland China, whose borders have been sealed throughout the pandemic, Xian city authorities have imposed a severe blockade that has led to reports of food shortages and medical neglect, including that of a woman who failed to enter a hospital.

South Korea, Thailand and Singapore have imposed a quarantine on almost all international travelers since last month, while Japan has banned all non-resident foreigners. South Korean authorities have also banned restaurants from operating from 9pm onwards Until at least January 16, and while the three Japanese prefectures have asked Tokyo to approve the almost emergency measures that include restrictions on restaurant and bar opening hours.

Jayant Menon, a senior visitor to the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, told Al Jazeera that the “excessive reaction” to the virus could not be justified at this stage of the pandemic.

“However, we continue to see responses from governments that cannot be justified in any sense of cost-benefit, even with a wide margin of error,” Menon said.

“In developing countries, the cost of continuing reductions in health care outcomes as a result of loss of livelihoods and incomes can easily outweigh the direct effects of a variant impotence infection. “For those who have the resources to access it, that view is economically, socially and morally failing.”

Asia’s cautious stance is on the side of countries like the US, UK and Australia, where they are promoting the perception that the number of cases that have broken the record is almost impossible to control with strict variation or because economic and social costs are not worth it.

In Australia, which imposed some of the toughest blockades and border controls in the early days of the pandemic, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday that “the days of blockade are gone”. In recent weeks, state health officials have told citizens to accept that everyone will receive Omicron, even though some authorities have set limits on dealing with rising cases, New South Wales on Friday suspended elective surgeries and banned singing and dancing in hospitality venues.

Officials have also repeatedly relaxed testing and isolation rules to ease disruptions in businesses and supply chains due to record numbers of people who have tested positive for the virus.

In the UK, Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that the country hoped to “launch” the current Omicron without further restrictions.

Although Omicron, believed to be 2-3 times more contagious than Delta, has put pressure on hospitals in both countries, deaths and cases of intensive care remain below previous peaks. In the UK, when the first Omicron case was discovered six weeks ago, the number of patients in mechanical ventilation beds is less than a quarter of the January 2021 peak.

In South Africa, where the variant was first discovered, the excessive deaths on its Omicron wave came to less than one-fifth of the toll suffered in January last year by a wave driven by the country’s Beta variant. Paul Glasziou, director of the Evidence-Based Health Institute at Bond University in Australia, estimates that one-third of the variant is fatal to people without the vaccine and less deadly than the flu vaccine.

“Intentionally and carefully distributed”

Ooi Eng Eong, a professor of emerging infectious diseases at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, told Al Jazeera that he believed that countries with high vaccination rates could be “relieved” of pre-vaccination restrictions, but would do so. art as much as science.

“I believe that each country will need to be informed and prepared to reduce the population to any extent,” Ooi said. “If not, misconceptions can often lead to widespread distrust of public health authorities, which could quickly erode any of COVID’s prevention programs.

Thira Woratanarat, an epidemiologist at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, told Al Jazeera that she did not believe that Asian countries were overreacting to the variant, with limited health capacity and access to vaccines, especially in poor areas of the region.

“If they control the epidemic in a low way, when all of a sudden it happens at a very high speed and fast, they will encounter a catastrophic moment and they will hardly control the situation,” he said.