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This is how ómicron redirects the course of the coronavirus pandemic

2022-07-04T20:53:22.987Z


The omicron variant of the new coronavirus is changing the course of the new coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Huerta explains why.


The importance of the third dose and the use of masks against the omicron variant 2:56

(CNN Spanish) --

For more than two years we have been living with a pandemic, that of the new coronavirus.

Throughout this time, variants have emerged, including omicron, which is responsible for the current increase in cases.

Dr. Elmer Huerta reviews what these two and a half years have been like and how ómicron is defining the current course of the pandemic.

You can listen to this episode on Spotify or your favorite podcast platform, or read the transcript below.

Hi, I'm Dr. Elmer Huerta and this is your dose of information about the new coronavirus.

Information that we hope will be useful to take care of his health and that of his family.

An account of the pandemic: from its beginnings to date

At the time of writing this episode, the pandemic is now in its second year and a half and shows no signs of ending, so we think it's time to take stock of its current state.

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First of all, it is important to remember that the reason why, at the beginning, the pandemic caused so much illness and death, is because SARS-CoV2 was a virus never seen in the history of humanity and finding a population without any kind of defenses against it, also caused a new disease.

This disease, covid-19, showed to present itself differently in humans, documenting very early that approximately 80% had mild symptoms, 15% were more severe and 5% developed a serious illness, which required hospitalization and could cause death. .

That original virus spread rapidly on the planet, causing the first waves of disease throughout the first year of the pandemic, 2020, with millions of cases and deaths in susceptible people.

During the first half of that year the virus began to mutate, becoming more infectious.

The first variants of the coronavirus

And it was at the end of that year 2020, the first year of the pandemic, that the virus began to change radically, the B.1.1.7 or British variants were discovered, and the 501Y.V2 or South African, which were baptized in June of 2021 by the World Health Organization as alpha and beta, respectively.

2021 —the second year of the pandemic— was then the year of the formation of variants, developing gamma, epsilon, lambda, which caused major epidemics in various regions of the world, being the delta variant, which originated in South Africa, the that spread the most on the planet, causing millions of infections and deaths.

But during the first months of 2021, the first major intervention that would completely change the course of the pandemic began to be implemented: vaccination, which allowed tens of millions of people to begin to achieve protection thanks to the various vaccines that were put on the market. .

Until in November 2021 the second major episode occurred that contributed to changing the course of the pandemic: the appearance of the variants of the omicron family, which are responsible for the current waves of infection in the world.

The arrival of the omicron variant

Let us remember that the variants of the ómicron family -especially the subvariants B.4 and B.5- are characterized by their enormous ease of mocking the antibodies produced by the action of vaccines or natural disease, for which they are capable of infecting both to vaccinated people and to those who have already had the previous disease.

At this time, then, there are three situations that have radically changed the course of the pandemic: the first, that there is a large proportion of the world population (with the exception of several countries in Africa) that has developed immunity thanks to the vaccine;

the second, that there is another large proportion of the world population that has developed antibodies thanks to natural infection, and finally, let us not forget that millions more people have acquired the so-called hybrid immunity, achieved by natural infection and the vaccine.

These three situations have made the pandemic -currently caused by variants of the omicron family- have very different characteristics from those of the pandemic suffered before vaccination and the wide dissemination of the virus.

If before vaccination, the world suffered from multiple waves of disease with a large number of infections and deaths, today it is being observed that, despite the fact that infections are much more numerous than before, the number of deaths is , happily, much smaller than the one we had.

The difference of the waves generated by omicron

An interesting article from

The New York Times

puts these facts into perspective to explain the current state of the pandemic in the United States, a situation that in our opinion could be replicated in other countries with similar vaccination characteristics and previous infections.

In this sense, it is estimated that the pandemic in this country is showing a number of infections up to 10 times more numerous than those that occurred in the boreal summer of 2021, but at the same time, the number of deaths is ten times lower than in January. of 2021.

In such a way that the current omicron pandemic has that characteristic, many cases of illness, but fortunately few deaths, predominantly in the elderly and in people with vulnerabilities.

Obviously, there is no guarantee that the pandemic will continue that way.

No one can guarantee that in the future a new variant with characteristics different from those of the omicron family will not be formed and that things may change radically.

Meanwhile, it is important, especially for vulnerable people, that preventive measures are maintained to avoid contagion, such as the use of a mask when being in closed and unventilated places.

We will have to wait and see what course the pandemic takes, but what we are sure of is that it is not over yet.

Do you have questions about covid-19?

Send me your questions on Twitter, we'll try to answer them in our next episodes.

You can find me at @DrHuerta.

If you find this podcast useful, be sure to subscribe to get the latest episode on your account.

Help others find it by rating and reviewing it on your favorite podcast app.

And for the most up-to-date information you can always head to CNNEspanol.com.

Thanks for your attention.

Covid-19omicronPandemic

Source: cnnespanol

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