According to Dr. Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, the spread of Omicron may help, rather than a hinder…

“Tough lockdown restrictions could end up doing more harm than good. Omicron could potentially be of great help to us, which is certainly not something you could say about the Delta variant. A hard lockdown would slow the process of Omicron making its way through the population and allowing people to develop the vital antibodies which will move your population towards herd immunity. The next variant might be slower spreading but more severe, and so we will need all the help we can get from such natural immunity.”