When South African scientists discovered the Omicron Covid variant in November, a world battered by two years of the virus and clinging to hope that vaccines were bringing its nightmares to an end, seemed to lose its mind.
Partly based on old racist tropes of dangerous mysterious things emerging from the “dark continent”, the western world rushed to slap travel bans on South Africa and its neighbours, although most of them had detected the variant yet.
South Africa and many other African epidemiologists were sent hopping mad. They were furious that South Africa was being punished because it is among the world genomic surveillance leaders, and its scientists are very good at discovering these things, as they did with the beta variant in 2020.
Also, as it turned out, in Botswana at least, the first people in whom the Omicron was detected were diplomats, three of who had come from the west. It wasn’t long before it emerged that Omicron had been in Europe before South Africa, but of course, those countries weren’t slapped with travel bans.
To make matters worse, countries like Botswana that had bought Covid vaccines at nearly double the price the rich west are buying it had seen deliveries delayed as those same countries needed to hoard jabs.
However, it is not racism and vaccine inequities that is the most worrying outcome of the Omicron furore. It is science itself.
The scientific community is divided over Omicron. Some say while it might be more contagious than previous variants, it is less deadly. Some that it is both more contagious and deadly. Many argue that is more contagious, but mild, and it is the best thing that has happened in the pandemic world in two years.
That is because, they say, because it is so contagious, it will displace Delta soon, and because it is mild, it won’t kill us much and thus become like the flu. Other experts are saying, no, no, there is something specific to South Africa and Omicron – HIV prevalence. And so the debate and speculation go on.
Speculation, yes. Most of the sensational and hysterical headlines are not informed by any good research. They are mostly opinions and musings by experts, and the fact that the South Africans first identified it, allows the racist typologies about it to be made without the risk of punishment.
The consequence of this is that you will watch a supposedly leading virologist from a vaunted American medical school or a Briton from Oxford University, spewing forth about Omicron, at the same level with Kamau the Uber driver in Nairobi, Okello the bricklayer in Kampala, or Siyabonga the car park attendant in Johannesburg.
In fact, you will likely get a better-informed view from Siyabonga, because he will be talking from realities on the ground.
The mass hysteria needing to be assuaged immediately, the rush by media to be first with the next big virus story, and the fact that barriers remain to good on-ground access to where Covid is doing its thing, and the now large army of Covid “experts” falling over each to get the limelight and TV spots, has led to a superstitious and unscientific babble about the pandemic. An otherwise respectable doctor knows he or she won’t merit time if they say something accurate and dull about Covid, so they pivot to the dramatic.
What could have been, “we don’t know enough yet, except that Omicron is more contagious than Delta”, becomes “South African doctors are telling us this could be the granddaddy of variants, multiplying up to 30 times faster, but we will see what the final data says”.
The loss is big. Although vaccination has risen sharply where doses are available, I saw warning signs in the response in Nairobi and other African media. I have also just travelled to West Africa, and I sense that what has happened with Omicron (“Omicron propaganda” they call it) could well be what has sealed it for Africans who saw a malevolent foreign hand in Covid.
They had been ridiculed for their embrace of conspiracy theories and shamed into silence. I think they are back, helped by the fact that many people were already seeing Covid only in the rear view mirror.
On November 19, the Associated Press reported this story out of Harare: “At a busy market in a poor township outside Harare this week, Nyasha Ndou kept his mask in his pocket, as hundreds of other people, mostly unmasked, jostled to buy and sell fruit and vegetables displayed on wooden tables and plastic sheets. As in much of Zimbabwe, here the coronavirus is quickly being relegated to the past, as political rallies, concerts and home gatherings have returned.
“Covid-19 is gone, when did you last hear of anyone who has died of Covid-19?” Ndou said. “The mask is to protect my pocket,” he said. “The police demand bribes so I lose money if I don’t move around with a mask.”
After Omicron, I suspect Ndou has a lot of company.
The author is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. Twitter@cobbo3
