Mortality from coronavirus with the advent of Omicron has significantly decreased: every day in Russia it takes the lives of not hundreds and thousands, but less than a hundred lives. Today, about 5% of the population suffers from moderate forms of COVID-19, virologists say. But this does not mean that the lethality of the infection will not grow again: in the organisms of animals and people with immunodeficiencies, the Delta variant is maturing, which, under certain conditions, can displace Omicron and lead to a new peak of the pandemic, doctors warned.
Ups and downs
The number of COVID-19 cases detected in Russia is approaching 50,000 per day and is growing by about 10,000 every week., follows from the statistics of the operational headquarters for the fight against coronavirus. If in the week from August 15 to August 21 the number of new infections fluctuated from 25 to 39 thousand per day, then in the week from August 22 to August 28 – already from 31 to 47 thousand.
In this way, the incidence in the Russian Federation exceeded the highest daily rates of 2020 and 2021 (maximum – November 6, 2021, 41.3 thousand cases), but has not yet reached the records of the winter of 2022when up to 204 thousand cases were registered daily.
Despite the high incidence, mortality from COVID-19 has dropped significantly. The record number of deaths from infection in the Russian Federation was registered on November 20, 2021 – 1,254 with 37.1 thousand infections. Then, in February 2022, the death rate dropped to 700-800 cases per day with a record high incidence.
As the operational headquarters reported on the morning of August 28, over the past day in Russia was 46.9 thousand cases were detected and 83 deaths recorded (average value per week – from 57 to 90 per day). That is mortality has decreased by more than 90% from its peak values.
In general, now the number of new cases is growing, followed by an increase in the number of hospitalizations and deaths; but on the other hand, it is obvious that now the mortality rate is much lower than in 2021, Georgy Vikulov, director of the National Research Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Viral Infections, noted in an interview with Izvestia.
— Omicron spreads rapidly but does not cause many severe forms. Although there are patients with moderate and moderate-severe course, they are about 5%who need hospitalization. On a national scale, this is a fairly large number of people. Therefore, it is wrong to say that everyone now has a mild course of COVID-19, it is not so, he said.
Many are concerned about the question of when the coronavirus will evolve to a seasonal flu with a minimum of deaths, and whether this will happen at all.
– In the future, this is possible, but how long it will take is not clear. According to some data, this is one or two years, according to others – more than ten years. The strain of pandemic influenza, for example, has become seasonal in a few years, the infectious disease specialist noted.
Strain, whatever it is
The current strain of the Omicron coronavirus, with all its subspecies, is indeed less deadly than previous variants.noted the immunologist, candidate of medical sciences Nikolai Kryuchkov.
– There is a noticeable decrease in pathogenicity when switching from the “Delta” line to “Omicron” – three to seven times, depending on what parameters we operate with. At the same time, Delta was stable in terms of performance, while Omicron was not. Its subspecies BA.5 is more lethal than the rest, he said.
It is BA.5, as well as BA.4, that are now the most common in Russia, the immunologist recalled. They are far from the pathogenicity of Delta, but the trend of increasing incidence is still alarming.
— Perhaps in the fall we will see a new serious increase in the incidence. Firstly, schoolchildren and students will return to study, and the adult population will return from vacations. Plus, insolation (the amount of sunlight. – Izvestia) and average temperature will decrease, air humidity will increase – all this will contribute to the spread of infection, – said Nikolai Kryuchkov.
Daily infections could reach 100,000 a day, half of this winter’s peakthe doctor suggested.
Omicron and its varieties are the most contagious strain of coronavirus in existence, and its contagiousness continues to increasesaid Nikolai Kryuchkov.
– Now there are new subspecies of Omicron – BA.4.6, which is common in Europe, and new generations of BA.5. Their infectivity is even higher than the previous options, as is the ability to evade immunity, he explained.
Evolutionarily, these subspecies are more perfect, since they were formed in Europe, where the percentage of herd immunity is high, the immunologist noted.
– But there are other conditions for the development of coronavirus – in the organisms of animals and people with immunodeficiencies. In theory, “Delta” can evolve, the pathogenicity of which is high, and a “super-strain” is formed– suggested Nikolai Kryuchkov.
Georgy Vikulov also admitted this possibility.
At the same time, in order to spread around the world, this “super-strain” will need to bypass Omicron in infectiousness, Nikolai Kryuchkov added.
— The good news is that there is an evolutionary limit to contagiousness.. In the current reincarnation coronavirus has already reached the level of highly contagious infection by all criteria. And, in my opinion, the limits in this area are already close,” said the immunologist.
One way or another, people should not relax now and forget about the coronavirus: they need to wear masks in public places and get vaccinated in a timely manner, since this at least facilitates the course of the disease, he concluded.
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