which symptoms remain and which have changed

Although the pandemic has look post-pandemic in Argentina, cases of coronavirus grew this past week for the third time in a row. There are specialists who say that it is “premature” to speak of the beginning of a new wave, but they do not rule it out. And if now you hear that”nothing else gives you a cold“Vulnerable groups remain at risk.

In the midst of counterpoints between what it is y what it appears to be —and with our guard down due to a health crisis that has already “softened” us–, the specialists interviewed by Clarion they give us certainty from the most visible: Covid-19 versus “Covid-22”. What does the virus do to the body today?

Since 2020, the era Wuhan of the covid, the symptoms changed (a lot). This is the era of Omicron and its subvariants. He mutated the host and changed who hosts it. In addition, since there are no restrictions and there are hardly any masks, he lives with the historical winter respiratory diseases.

That’s why we doubt “if there is a cough but no fever”and “it’s a sore throat but not like angina” and we evaluated even the color of the mucus.

While, hardly anyone swabs anymorehay immunosuppressed people receiving a fifth dose in City and Province, the Ministry of Health of the Nation has just announced Covid vaccination from 6 monthsand Pfizer and Moderna, the vaccines acclaimed by scientific critics for their messenger RNA technology, They advance in an upgrade for Omicron mutations.

Symptoms of yesterday and (not) today

In the country we have all the subvariants of Omicron (technically, sublineages) considered “of interest” or “of concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO). This includes BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, BA.5 and BA.2.12.1.

The latest official report on genomic sequencing, released by the PAIS Project and the Malbrán Institute, details that until July 1, when cases were down, the fourth wave was from the BA.2 lineage. But that BA.2.12.1 had been found between 5-26% of the cases and BA.4/BA.5 between 6-25%.

The latter, BA.5, is already branded in the world as “the worst variant”. Not because she is more harmful but because she generated a global increase in cases: 30% more only in 15 days.

It is worth returning to the question: what symptoms changed (and why) from 2020 to today’s subvariants?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS), a UK body that does an exhaustive analysis of a very large percentage of cases, breaks down the associated symptoms and how they were varying in the different waves.

They say “fewer and fewer symptoms are being reported.” They evaluated the classic combo. The one from 2020 it is fought at home with paracetamol: cough, tiredness, headache, body and throat.

“The symptom of loss of taste and smell is at its lowest levels since Ómicron is predominant (December 2021),” details the ONS. tos (whether it dries or not is not clear) has been maintained since the start of the pandemic, followed by throat pain y headache. The fever – so “buchona” of the infection in the previous waves – is left behind by the diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain and body pain.

Data in that “pure” state, which you requested Clarion to the Ministry of Health of the Nation, they do not exist in Argentina. The weekly reports only count positives (31,845), deaths (36) and occupation of beds in intensive care. To talk of it feelsyou have to go with those who are face to face with patients and see what is no longer happening.

“We’re seeing fewer skin manifestations now (rash and pernio erythema, like chilblains, which was less common in previous waves) and higher symptoms (not in the lungs): sore throat, itchy or painful when swallowing and is not angina, cold. And not so much pneumonia,” he details Clarion the infectologist Elena Obieta, head of the Communicable and Emerging Diseases Service of San Isidro.

Regarding that “cold” that is talked about so much with “this Covid”, Obieta notes that “the fever remains” among the symptoms, even if it does not reach 40°, and that there is a fascination for the color of mucus. Come the discharge from the throat or nose, he clarifies that “it doesn’t necessarily have to be green if it’s Covid. It can be white or like egg white“.

What exactly defines it is the swab, but even in the largest clinics, although there are no queues or collapses to be tested, they are guided by “the clinic” and if there are several compatible symptoms, they only swab “per protocol” cancer patients or patients with comorbidities.

“It is evident that by changing the criteria and only testing older people or those with comorbidities, we are seeing only a small part of what exists“, says the physicist and researcher from Conicet Jorge Aliaga. The sub-testing also cast shadows on today’s symptoms.

Lautaro De Vedia, infectologist at Hospital Muñiz and former president of the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases (SADI), tells Clarion that “of 50 beds in therapy that we had occupied by Covid, today we have 5”.

Before Ómicron, 100% occupied them in that hospital they didn’t even have a vaccine. Today there are 60% in that group. “There are also those who do not have incomplete vaccination or some comorbidity. But very few. Little lung involvement is seen and more cold, sore throat. Some earache, infrequent.”

Who came undefeated and got infected now, they have a worse time than a reinfected?

“Beyond the perception of individual cases around us, there is absolutely no greater symptomatology in this new wave of infections. In Argentina, BA.2 continues to predominate and BA.4 is increasing, although we do not yet have local data. None are variants that are associated with more serious cases, neither BA.4, nor a lower proportion of asymptomatic individuals,” explains Jorge Geffner, senior researcher at Conicet at the Institute for Biomedical Research on Retroviruses and AIDS (INBIRS).

At the same time, he notes that “it is already a bit difficult to detect the symptoms of a vaccinated and a non-vaccinated person”, because “due to the successive waves of Covid, possibly that person who believes that he was not infected has become infected”, he says and He gives the example of boys in schools.

It also details the lack of definitions on the long Covid or persistent Covid. “Some say that an incidence of 30%, others 6% or 5%. It is a very important difference. But the syndrome that characterizes long Covid changes according to the papers. Studying that in terms of symptoms is a pending issue,” Geffner closes.

How much the host changed and how much the host changed

From genomic sequencing, the virologist Humberto Debat, member of the PAIS Project, says that the Covid symptoms ranking “It has a lot more to do with the host than with the guest.”

It reinforces that “although the virus mutated (Ómicron has more difficulty colonizing the lungs)” the changes in symptomatology have more to do with the “preimmunity” acquired by the population in the different waves. Either by infection or by vaccines. “It makes the picture different in future infections. Often times lighter“he scores.

For Debat, although thanks to vaccines there is protection against serious forms and death, “it is important not to eliminate the hypothesis that it is Covid because ‘he just has a cold and snot’ y ‘he has no fever or headache’. Testing is key to protecting risk groups. And testing those who are not in that group is the way to prevent them from bringing the virus to those who are vulnerable.” This has been the case since the beginning of the pandemic.

AS

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