Sask. top doc predicts life in the 'Omicron era'

Saskatchewan Medical Health Officer Saqib Shahab compared living with the Omicron COVID-19 variant to the annual flu season.

"While we are moving to a different phase, you know, I've called it the Omicron era, we need to be cautious that each infectious disease is unique and each infectious disease evolves," he said Thursday in an online media briefing.

A well-matched flu vaccine can prevent 60 per cent of illnesses and even in those years, seniors in long-term care get a high-dose vaccine. Those people still have a worse response to the flu, but antivirals and other treatments are available for people at high risk, he said.

"Obviously, everyone doesn't take antivirals for influenza, people at high risk are able to take antivirals. So using the same analogy, you know, our the evolution of COVID has evolved, where we now have booster doses available. The vaccine effectiveness, especially after a booster dose, is extremely high to prevent hospitalization.

"But as we know through our breakthrough analysis that people at high risk — older, immune-suppressed — are still at higher risk of being hospitalized."

He said the province's breakthrough case data for January will show the same experience as other provinces who are further ahead on the Omicron curve, as well as the United Kingdom: that COVID-19 is moving more from a severe illness in the unvaccinated, which Omicron can still be at any age, to also affecting those with two doses of vaccine — and rarely those with a booster — and older people with underlying risk factors.

"So that's now more similar to how influenza behaves when there's a poor vaccine match. And we know that while the vaccine is still very effective for most people in preventing hospitalizations, it is there's some loss of efficacy due to the Omicron variant which will show some vaccine escape, and that's why boosting is important and also, where appropriate, access to therapeutics."