Variations

Many, including a Sage scientist, are saying that the Omicron Covid variant is nothing to worry about, simply because it's less virulent and that banning flights is an overreaction. It is, however, far more infectious, having 30 odd mutations and 15 mutations on the spike protein alone, which increase the number of binding sites on human cells to give it an R number of 6 or 7, according to reports.

Given it is highly infectious, given reports suggest it can even infect double vaccinated individuals (albeit mildly), given it has a distinct possibility of becoming the dominant strain and given it has shown a capacity a for high mutation rate, letting it rip through the population exponentially increases the risk of a highly infectious virus mutating once more into something more lethal, while simultaneously being highly communicable and somewhat resistant to current vaccines. That doesn't come from an in-depth knowledge of virology, but simple logic and joining very visible dots.

It would be wrong to ascribe intelligence to a virus but, rather like water running downhill finds the path of least resistance, it proliferates when conditions, such as the human body, are right for replication. With each replication comes the chance of a mutation - that's simply the nature of organic replication. Mutations can possibly be self-destructive, leading to them being short lived, or they can be advantageous, like mutations to the spike protein, making it more infectious. Some can be deadly to humans. Certain combinations can be devastating on human hosts

Omicron itself may be no cause for concern; what is of concern is what Omicron could become, especially when it becomes dominant and has far more humans in which it has the opportunity to mutate. Reliance on early, weak information is foolish, just as relying 100% on a single scientific paper is foolish (such, however, is the staple of sensationalist tabloid journalism).

It's not a great strategy in warfare to lower your defences when you know little about the disposition of your enemy's forces or the strength of his weaponry. What is needed is vigilance and intelligence gathering. Better safe than sorry.

To quote General Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff in WWI; "No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main enemy forces. Only the layman believes that in the course of a campaign he sees the consistent implementation of an original thought that has been considered in advance in every detail and retained to the end."

I would add a rider to that; "Unless the enemy is asleep and totally unprepared," as we were in January 2020 and several other instances since.