Medical staff at Steve Biko Academic Hospital on January 19, 2021 in Pretoria, South Africa.
Gallo images | Gallo images | beautiful pictures
Within weeks, the Covid-19 omicron variant – first detected in South Africa and Botswana in November – has surged around the world, leading to millions of new cases and the re-imposition of restrictions. coronavirus in many countries.
US and Europe roll out booster shots as quickly as possible following research findings by Covid vaccine makers Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna that the omicron variant weakened the effectiveness of their two standard Covid injections, but those booster shots greatly increase the protection against variant.
However, cases in both regions have skyrocketed, with the US reporting more than 1 million new Covid cases daily on Monday, Britain and France are also among the countries that report a staggering number of daily infections, reaching 200,000 a day in recent surveys. Hospitalization rates are also steadily increasing in affected countries, although hospitalizations and deaths are still far below previous peaks.
As more and more evidence showing that omicrons cause less serious disease than their predecessors, experts are cautiously optimistic that while omicron waves are proving sharper than those associated with earlier variants , it can also be shorter.
According to experts, South Africa believes its omicron wave has peaked, and London – where omicron cases spiked in December before the variation really took hold in the rest of Europe – has may be seeing cases begin to stabilize, experts say, boosting hopes that the omicron wave could soon peak elsewhere as well.
Omicron ‘may have peaked’
South African government issued a statement on December 30 which said that the country’s Ministry of Health reported a 29.7% decrease in the number of new cases detected for the week ending December 25 (89,781), compared with the number of new cases in the previous week (127,753). ) .
“All indicators suggest that the country may have passed the peak of the fourth wave at the national level,” the statement said, with the number of cases falling in all provinces except the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. times recorded an increase of 14% and 18%. .
However, hospitalizations were down in all provinces except the Western Cape, the statement added, noting that overall hospitalizations were lower with the omicron variation.
“Although the omicron variant is highly transmissible, the hospitalization rate is already lower than in previous episodes. This means that the country is capable of accepting patients even for conventional health services. There is a slight increase in the number of deaths in all provinces.”
‘Flash flood’ infection
Global experts have been closely monitoring South Africa’s Covid data, as it was one of the first countries to detect the omicron variant and alert the World Health Organization, which has designated the strain. The heavy mutation was the “disturbing variant” on November 26.
Field studies from South Africa and the UK show that people infected with omicrons develop milder disease than the previously globally dominant delta variant. However, Omicron is much more transmissible, meaning a larger number of cases could lead to more pressure on health services.
When omicrons were first discovered by doctors in South Africa, They observed that their patients appeared to have a milder illness that resembled a cold rather than the flu, symptoms associated with previous strains of Covid. South African doctors also found that most people hospitalized for omicrons were hospitalized for other reasons and did not need oxygen.
Again research published in International journal of infectious diseases on December 28 suggested that the wave of omicron hospitalizations in Tshwane (a city in South Africa’s Gauteng province where omicron cases spike in December) peaked “within 4 weeks of starting The number of people admitted to the hospital increased rapidly and began to decline over a period of time, in 33 days.”
Fareed Abdullah, director of AIDS and tuberculosis research at the South African Medical Research Council, likened the wave of omicron infections to a “flash flood” and described the rate at which the wave rose, peaked and waned. omicron is “astonishing”.
Cautious optimism for London
Like South Africa, the UK has been closely watched as it was the first European country to be hit hard by a spike in omicron infections in December, before the variant spread in the US. and continental Europe.
The UK capital London saw a spike in omicron infections in December but there are signs that cases are starting to stabilize, suggesting again that this wave of omicrons will peak. faster than the previous ones.
Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, a professor from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, commented on Tuesday that he is “cautiously optimistic that the rate of infection in London is in the 18-50 age group. critical, has led to omicron outbreaks, which can be high, although he told the BBC’s “Today” radio program that “it’s too early to say if they’ll go down.”
“We could see another pattern in hospital admissions, while echoing other state officials who have warned that UK hospitals are likely to come under further strain in the coming weeks,” he noted. , and Ferguson noted that “we could see highs for a number of weeks. “
Hospitalizations and deaths tend to drag on new infections by weeks, but the UK’s popular Covid vaccination program has kept hospitalization and death rates much lower than in the early stages of the pandemic. epidemic. Whether South Africa’s omicron experience is comparable to that of the UK remains to be seen, given differences in demographics, vaccine coverage and immunity levels among populations.
Lawrence Young, professor of molecular oncology at the University of Warwick, told CNBC on Tuesday that “it looks like cases are going up in London in the 18-50 age group” but the next few weeks will prove crucial. important in looking at the omicron crisis. play outside.
“The problem is now spreading to older age groups, which is likely to be driven by holiday mix-ups and will lead to more severe outcomes and hospitalizations,” he noted. , as well as “more infectious among school-age children. [that] will further increase the number of cases. “
“But given the rapid and widespread spread of omicrons and the level of immunity in the population, there won’t be many susceptible people left to become infected so the number of cases is expected to decrease over the next few weeks. This may not be the same as He noted:
Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told CNBC on Tuesday that South Africa’s omicron data and experience is to blame for the optimism, as is the fact that “the bulk” omicron infections in Europe “didn’t correspond to an intensive level of intensive care unit hospitalization and death, despite the caveat that it takes time to die.”
According to Professor David Heymann, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, hospitalization is an important indicator to monitor.
“This coronavirus, like other coronaviruses, will be a virus endemic to humans and will eventually be capable of causing the common cold. That’s because as immunity in the population increases and Antibody levels in the UK are already over 90%, once that happens the virus has been modified – it has not been prevented from re-infecting or infecting people who have been vaccinated – but it is being contained. cause serious illness and that’s why monitoring hospitalizations is so important,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday. .
