Omicron can help us end the pandemic and the coming weeks are crucial – Wired PR Lifestyle Story

Fighting with fire

When a virus gets worse, two things happen.

One is that potential hosts are more eager to deal with this (which is why we work on quarantine and treat patients in isolation wards), so exposure to new hosts is limited. Two, when the infected host dies, its ability to transmit the virus further also ends.

So, from a virus point of view (especially from an air point of view), it is in their best interest to be able to infect as many people as possible. As a result, the most susceptible strains are the most infectious, but also the most severe.

Natural selection is at stake here, and a mild virus is more likely to survive in the environment. The appearance of this tension would help us to overcome the deadliest, in fact, by using one viral sibling to eliminate the other.

Scientists theorized that this may be the case, in fact, with Covid, who is gradually becoming a form worse for most of us than a common cold (after all, we already suffer in this way. other human coronaviruses).

In 1889, an outbreak of the disease occurred in Central Asia, and a pandemic which was burned the following year. He created it sugar and fatigue, and killed a million people. The disease was generally attributed to the flu, and “Russian flu“. But without a tissue sample to check flu virus, there was no conclusive evidence.

Another possibility is that the “flu” is really a coronavirus pandemic. The fingers first pointed to an isolated virus in the 1960s, although it is now no more serious than a common cold.

In fact, four coronaviruses are responsible for 20 to 30 percent of colds. Virologists have recently begun to study these seemingly modest pathogens and suggest those who have found them. viruses have a more deadly past.

Researchers believe that these four viruses have now begun to infect humans in recent centuries, and when they did, they probably sparked pandemics. The parallels with our current crisis are obvious.

Source: New Scientist, April 29, 2020

The data suggest that this has not been the case so far, as each subsequent variant of Covid-19 – with A.1, Alpha, Beta and Delta being the main ones – has become more infectious and deadly. This time, however, things seem different.

We still know very little about Omicron, but the initial signs are still positive; in fact, they are the best we have had in the last two years.

Although the virus appears to be spreading very rapidly, it does not appear to claim any (or many) lives, and early hospitalized patients appear to have less need for additional oxygen or ICU treatment compared to previous variants.

These are the latest sightings in the South African Tshwane District, the epicenter of this new outbreak and probably the birthplace of Omicron, where doctors have reported that the start of this new wave is not similar to that of previous viral strains.

In fact, many of the patients were diagnosed with an accident as part of the screening process for other reasons when they were admitted to the hospital. And those who ended up on Omicron treatment suffer from milder symptoms.

In summary, this is the first impression of the study of 166 patients admitted since the appearance of the Omicron variant, together with a photograph of the clinical profile of 42 patients in the COVID wards of the SBAH / TDH complex. most hospital admissions are for diagnoses unrelated to COVID-19. The SARS-CoV-2 positivity is a random finding in these patients and is largely driven by hospital policies that require testing of all patients who need to be admitted to the hospital.

The proportion of patients in the air in the room using COVID as a marker of random acceptance of COVID (as opposed to severe COVID), 66% of patients in the SBAH / TDH complex are random COVID receptions. This very unusual picture is also happening in other hospitals in Gauteng. As of Dec. 3, Helen Joseph Hospital had 37 patients in COVID wards, of whom 31 were in the air (83 percent); and Dr. George Mukhari’s Academic Hospital had 80 patients, 14 of them in supplemental oxygen and one in a ventilator (81 percent in room air).

The exponential increase in the positivity rate of these patients is a reflection of the rapid increase in Tshwane’s case rate, but it does not appear to be associated with a simultaneous increase in the admission rate for severe COVID (pneumonia) based on the high proportion of patients who do not need supplemental oxygen.

Relatively low number of COVID-19 pneumonia hospitalizations in general care and ICU wards a very different picture compared to the beginning of the previous waves.

Dr. Fareed Abdullah, Director of the AIDS and TV Research Office of the South African Medical Research Council / Source: SAMRC

Happy New Year?

Of course, we should not jump to conclusions too quickly; there is still not enough data on all demographics (especially the elderly) to indicate that it is definitely more dangerous than the Omicron Delta.

Well, at least I didn’t go down without explaining myself first. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US President’s Chief Medical Adviser, has already seen this carefully in this pandemic initial reports are encouraging.

The next four to eight weeks will be crucial as the variant spreads its global circulation, infecting thousands, perhaps millions of people, which will provide us with enough information to draw conclusions about what the future holds.

But we don’t have to be afraid of it, or any other new variant that is yet to emerge, as it could be our best way out of this pandemic.

Vaccines are a great tool, of course, but they are not the silver bullet we expected.

Although they reduce the risk of death or serious illness and limit transmission to some extent, they do not eliminate them. They also need regular boosters to keep their immunity high.

With some doubts about the vaccine in some countries, all that is needed is to limit Covid’s impact to acceptable levels, which will allow us to return to living our lives as before.

A real game changer would be a more infectious and serious variant.

Just as it competed with the high transmissibility of the Delta and de facto eliminated Beta and Alpha out of circulation, a lighter Omicron could do this to the Delta, saving millions of lives and turning it into a common cold than a virus that brings millions of innocent people together. his way.

While the Omicron Covid-19 is not the last word, it can be at least a step in the right direction and in the future, as the lightweight variants it can replace can further reduce mortality, allowing us to live as we live. other coronaviruses that cause cold.

In such a case, ironically, we would open our borders and resume our usual activity, not so fast, because the faster circulation of the new variant (s) would help us to get rid of the disturbing Delta. And there is no better way to do that than to encourage human interaction.

Let’s hope that this scenario — paradoxical and unlikely today — will be a way to remember the beginning of 2022.

Featured Image Credit: AFP