Oxford Professor Says COVID-19 Pandemic Could Be More Deadly If The First Omicron Variant Appears In Wuhan

JAKARTA - The death toll from COVID-19 could get worse if the Omicron variant was the first type of coronavirus to appear in Wuhan, China, according to a leading immunologist.

Sir John Bell, professor of medical regious at the University of Oxford, UK, said the impact of the pandemic "can be much worse" with a highly contagious variant.

He spoke after comments from former Chinese Government scientist Prof. George Gao, who said it was possible that the coronavirus leaked from the laboratory should not be ruled out.

Speaking on the 'Today' program on BBC Radio 4, Sir John said he didn't think evidence of whether the virus emerged from the laboratory, or naturally, was also uncertain.

"I will tell you that there is actually no difference," he said, as reported by The National News May 30.

"We know historically, we got pathogens originating from the world of animals that enter humans that cause this kind of outbreak," he explained.

"And we also know that laboratories treating these highly pathogenic viruses have leakage," he said.

He further said how the world responded to prepare for another pandemic was the most important.

Sir John said he recently held a meeting attended by Prof Gao, where the modeling of COVID by a company called Airfinity was discussed.

"They did modeling with the idea that the first virus that appeared in Wuhan was not the Wuhan type, but the Omicron type, which we all know is much more contagious," he explained.

"And it attacks populations that are immunologically naive, in other words a population that has never seen a virus before," continued Sir John.

"The peak of death in the UK will be about five times what happened to the Wuhan strain. Remember, it was a pretty dark period during April and May 2020 and I don't think we wanted five times the number of people who died," he explained.

"And if it was bird flu, then the number could reach 15 times (higher). So I think, when we hear that there will be a big pandemic, if any of these two things happen, it will be much worse than what we see," said Sir John.

Separately, in an interview with the BBC, Prof. Gao said on the Radio 4 podcast titled 'Fever: The Hunt for Covid's Origin': "You can always suspect anything. That's science. Don't rule anything out."

Prof Gao now serves as Vice President of China's National Natural Science Foundation after retiring last year from the CDC, where he played a key role in the response to the pandemic and attempts to track down how the pandemic started.

It is known, the theory that COVID-19 leaked accidentally from a Chinese laboratory reappeared in February, when FBI Director Christopher Wray said this was where the virus "most likely" came from, although there was no consensus among US intelligence agencies on the matter.