Cases across the United States continue to hover around 100,000 per day, but most health experts agree that this is an underestimated number of infections.
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Experts: “Corona” returns with a fierce strain
Health experts confirm that the BA.5 sub-mutant caused by the omicron of the new Corona virus is able to spread more among people, whether they are immunized with various anti-coronavirus vaccines or have recently recovered from a few days or weeks of Covid-19 disease, according to the website. “theatlantic”.
Quotes The Independent on Anthony FauciThe chief medical adviser to US President Joe Biden, during a briefing at the White House, yesterday, Tuesday, that the new sub-mutant is able to spread quickly and that it has caused about 60% of the injuries in the United States.
“Each successive mutator has the advantage of faster transmission than the previous one,” Fauci added, adding, “If you were someone who contracted the virus during the first or even the second waves, you wouldn’t have a lot of good protection under the current wave.”
Fauci’s comments coincide with warnings to health experts from around the world of new strains caused by the Omicron mutant, which is more like a “hidden strain” capable of re-infecting people with the Corona virus within weeks of their last infection with the same disease.
“What we’re seeing is an increasing number of people who have had BA.2 and then been infected again 4 weeks later,” Western Australia’s chief health officer, Andrew Robertston, said in a press statement.
Fauci, who pointed out that the new strains will continue to pose a threat to society as long as the virus continues to spread unchecked, adding: “But we should not let it disrupt our lives, and at the same time we do not deny the fact that we must deal with it.”
Faucia, who also heads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said one reason the new strains of Omicron have spread is due to their ability to evade “antibodies and the inability of current vaccines to counteract them.”
Rochelle Walinsky, of the Center for Infectious Diseases Control, explained during the White House briefing that “it is possible that people with previous infections, even with BA.1 or BA.2, are still at risk of BA.4.” or BA.5″.
In the same context, researcher and physician Dan Baruch found, through research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that there was a 3-fold decrease in neutralizing antibodies from vaccines and infection against BA.4 and BA.5, which were significantly lower than BA. .1 and BA.2.
“It is likely that vaccine immunity will continue to provide significant protection against severe symptoms caused by the BA.4 and BA.5 mutant,” Baruch told CNN.
Cases across the United States continued to hover around 100,000 per day, but most health experts agree that this number does not accurately represent the number of infections, as many rely on conducting tests at home, while the number of hospital admissions increased, According to the New York Times, it has increased by 18 percent over the past two weeks in the United States.
For her part, the epidemiologist of infectious diseases at the World Health Organization, Maria Van Kerkhove, stated that the goal is not to prevent all cases of transmission but to work to reduce its spread,” adding: “It is not over, and we are playing with fire by allowing this virus to spread in such a way.” extreme levels.”
In a related context, the epidemiologist at the Health Security Agency in the United Kingdom, Megan Cale, confirms that new strains are spreading widely among people who have not been infected with the virus before, pointing out that about half of those infected in England in the current wave suffer from the disease for the first time.
He noted that those infected with the new sub-mutant represent only 15% of the country’s population, adding: “Although repeated infection poses a serious problem, the population still enjoys some protection against infection with some new sub-strains.”
According to Cal, the effect of the BA.5 mutated will make a significant difference around the world, explaining that both South Africa and the United Kingdom have experienced only slight increases in hospitalizations and deaths despite the rise in BA.5 cases, which indicates that “protection from vaccines Against severe disease and death is still really strong.”