“There’s no reason to believe Omicron is the result of the virus mutating faster,” Luban says. “It’s just that we never saw this version while it was being developed, wherever that was.”
That could have happened in someone with a weakened immune system who was only able to mount a partial defense against the virus, putting just enough selective pressure on the virus to mutate and mutate until it found the changes that allowed it to become the efficiently spreading virus we now know as Omicron. Scientists have reported cases of immunocompromised patients who have been able to harbor potentially mutating viruses for months or even a year since the pandemic began.
In other words, the next Omicron could already exist and we would be unaware of it. Unless, of course, we significantly improve our global surveillance efforts and increase the amount of genetic sequencing of the virus done globally. Laying bare the virus’s genome can provide the earliest indications of any changes, as well as hints as to which of these deviations may be harmful to human health.
We could have prioritized locking down the parts of the world where those mutations were common if we had been able to identify the genetic changes that led to the Delta variant early on, says Pardis Sabeti, professor at Harvard’s Center for Systems Biology and member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.
“That’s what genomic sequencing can do: keep us ahead of diagnoses [of new cases] so we can try to develop countermeasures, including new therapies.” It’s a case of ‘know thy enemy.’ If your enemy moves, you have to move.” We could better prioritize vaccine and treatment efforts if we had real-time genetic information. “The more information you have, the more careful we can be with what are necessarily limited resources,” Sabeti says.
“That’s what genomic sequencing can do: keep us ahead of new case diagnoses so we can try to develop countermeasures, including new therapies.” It’s all about getting to know your adversary. If your opponent moves, you must move as well.” We may be able to better prioritize vaccine and treatment efforts if we have real-time genetic information. “The more information you have, the more thoughtful we can be in expending what must be finite resources,” Sabeti says.
Experts’ best guesses for what will happen next
How likely is it that Omicron is the last gasp of SARS-CoV-2? According to Farrar, the chances are 40 to 50 percent.
One of the main reasons the odds aren’t higher is that Omicron’s genetic changes make it more capable of evading capture by the antibodies produced by the immune system, both naturally and after vaccination. This helps the virus spread faster—until it reaches a tipping point, at which point the virus becomes self-defeating if it is too good at spreading and causing disease.
