For now, things look good for the evolution of the corona pandemic. Thanks to vaccination campaigns and the omikron variant.
The new coronavirus vaccination campaign is launched at a time when the virus is already little more than a vague memory for many people. Many act as if the battle has been won and the virus has been won. This is not the case. The virus is still there. It is even omnipresent. In recent months it has been more prevalent than ever in the pandemic. But it’s not that convincing anymore, largely due to the fact that the variants now in circulation make fewer people sick and hospitalize than previous versions. Resistance, acquired through previous infections and effective vaccines, is also doing its job.
So far, around 85% of Belgians have followed the government’s vaccination advice without too much delay. It remains to be seen how many people will mobilize the second large-scale recall campaign against the virus, currently underway. It remains advisable to maintain the highest possible level of protection against the coronavirus. No one can predict how the virus will evolve, although favorable signs seem to indicate that next fall will not be that bad.
If a completely new variant does not appear suddenly, it will be a quiet autumn.
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The omikron variant continues to dominate the virus population and is less pathogenic than the delta variant and other predecessors. As long as omikron remains in power in the coronavirus world, we shouldn’t worry too much. This is the prevailing opinion in the circles of virus fighters. For now, observations indicate that omikron continues to mutate and create new sub-variants, but no variant has yet emerged capable of attacking omikron’s dominance.
New wave of viruses
An analysis in the journal Nature concluded that, for the time being, the coronavirus appears to be stabilizing in a fairly predictable pattern of new waves resulting from circulating variants. On average, a new variant or sub-variant appears every six months. Many people have developed sufficient resistance to these variants, making them less likely to get sick. If the coronavirus continues down this path, it could become something like the flu virus that resurfaces every year, but each time in a slightly modified form.
This does not mean that we can now permanently sleep on our two ears. An analysis in the sector magazine Science describes how new variants of the virus are likely to manifest continuously in individual patients who have been very ill for a long time due to a chronic infection, but simply not enough to die. In these patients, the virus has a lot of time and many options to mutate and prove something. In most infected people, it is deactivated by the immune system before it has discovered anything new. But if a mutated virus manages to escape the infested body and infect other people, it can turn into a new wave of viruses.
It goes without saying that doctors closely monitor such patients, but unfortunately the health system is not as well developed everywhere to suppress the risk of spreading a new variant. It is therefore advisable to provide as many people as possible with the best possible protection against the virus. Numerous studies illustrate the importance of vaccination in this sense. A publication in Nature communications said the omikron variant partly escapes the resistance built up from both previous infections and vaccinations, but that protection remains high enough to prevent newly infected people from ending up in hospital as often as earlier stages of the pandemic.
Corona vaccines continue to save lives and prevent people from suffering the long-term consequences of an infection, now quite familiar as pulmonary covid. Research on this continues to produce new insights. For example, a report in Science advances that the coronavirus would be able to create small channels from the nose to brain cells, so that it can enter the brain through them. The study was limited to observations in laboratory dishes, but is taken seriously, as it provides an acceptable explanation of the mystery of how the virus can enter our brains.
According to the medical journal The hand the possibility of pulmonary covid after an infection with the omikron variant is half that of the delta variant, which again demonstrates that we were lucky that omikron was able to shift the delta in the course of viral evolution . However, the risk of reinfection with the virus appears to be greater than previously thought. Figures summarized in New scientist show that the interval between two corona infections of the same person averages almost a year (343 days to be exact). But some people have been reinfected with a new variant or sub-variant of the virus as early as 20 days after a previous infection. Reinfections usually make people less sick, but they don’t give the full guarantee of a problem-free course.
After acquisition by the omikron variant, the chance of reinfection was sixteen times greater than under the delta rule. Omikron hurts less, but spreads easily. A recent study even suggested that a highly contagious person (a “super spreader”) can detonate up to a thousand times more omikron virus particles in the air than was possible with the delta variant. Omikron is a super spreader in its own right.
Quite a few babies and young children have not been able to build enough resistance to classic childhood diseases due to blockade and other anti-corona measures.
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Bivalent vaccines
One of the reasons the coronavirus has been so prevalent recently is that people are less likely to get tested because they think the worst is over. This facilitated the spread of the virus. Last summer, our country also recorded an increase in infections, although fortunately this did not entail a new additional burden for hospitals and care institutions. An American study, published in Open JAMA network, found that about half of those who had antibodies to the virus in their blood didn’t even know they were infected. About 10% of them said they experienced some minor symptoms but attributed them to a cold. The virus therefore circulates largely unnoticed.
Meanwhile, there is a debate among scientists about the extent to which modified versions of the currently administered coronavirus mRNA vaccines provide additional protection. The manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech have commercialized the so-called “bivalent” vaccines, which attack elements of the parent virus and specific elements of the omikron variant. The intention is for them to provide the broadest possible protection against the coronavirus in its entirety. Since there are strong indications that the amount of vaccine in the early versions was greater than needed for maximum effect, the new boosters have been made a little less “heavy”.
But an analysis of the first results of the new booster vaccines in Nature seems to indicate that their effect is only marginally greater than that of the original vaccines. All infections and vaccinations increase the defense against a new infection with the virus, but because the success of the first vaccines was so high, relatively small additional profits would be made with the new versions. Some are therefore wondering if the foam in this matter was worth the money, a discussion that will undoubtedly be at the forefront in the coming months, because the goal is to finally bring to market a vaccine so broad that at best it is effective against. all possible variants of coronavirus.
Studies have found that each additional exposure of a body to a vaccine or viral invasion reduces the risk of reinfection by 12%. But they also showed that protection decreases by 6% every five weeks after infection or vaccination. Vaccines therefore do not constitute a super shield against the virus. The accumulated resistance does not remain absolute. The immune system must be kept on alert to avoid calamities. Natural resistance to a certain coronavirus variant doesn’t always work as efficiently against a new variant. Vaccines can partially bridge this gap.
Babies and small children
In Nature communications A simulation of the coronavirus circulation trend in the UK appeared until the end of the year. If suddenly a completely new variant does not appear, it will be a quiet autumn, with a decrease in the circulation of the virus due to the many infections in recent months and the new vaccination campaign. However, there are warnings against premature optimism, if only because the dangerous delta variant hasn’t quite disappeared from the picture yet. If it could adapt to become competitive against omikron and regain the upper hand, we risk entering a more severe form of the pandemic again. Nor can it be ruled out that a new variant appears out of nowhere, such as omikron just over a year ago. We need to be prepared for the worst for a while.
In addition, we must take into account the fallout from the early years of the crown. Quite a few babies and young children have not been able to build enough resistance to classic childhood diseases due to blockade and other anti-corona measures. They still have to have those diseases. Quite a few people are facing severe mental consequences of the pandemic. The health nuisance caused by pulmonary covid has not yet been mapped. No one can even roughly predict how many people will never be completely relieved of the effects of their infection. The pandemic will keep us busy for a while. •
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