© Xinhua
Health personnel extreme precautionary measures.
China is the place where it all started and everything gets complicated once more. Since the beginning of 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic was reported, the Asian giant has stood out for the speed of its reflexes in controlling the virus. In fact, their figures confirm this: while the nations of the world exploded with rising infections and case records in successive waves, the situation in the country with the highest population density in the world seemed to go once morest the tide. However, the situation is currently changing.: Although the average for the last week indicates a record of 16,000 new infections each day, it reported days with 25,000. Faced with this new escalation, the eastern government took matters into its own hands and the recipe seems to be the same as two years ago: Shanghai isolated its 25 million inhabitants “indefinitely”until the team of medical and scientific specialists manage to understand the true scope of the new wave.
The situation is not new because it is directly related to the underlying health objective: Unlike the West, China does not seek to deploy strategies to “coexist with the virus” but hopes to eliminate it. In this way, far from flattening the curve, try to “kill” it. Daniela Hozbor, biochemist and principal investigator of the Conicet at the Institute of Biotechnology and Molecular Biology of La Plata, puts numbers to the evolution of the new wave: “If on March 16 there were 4 thousand cases, on March 23 it happened to regarding 13 thousand and on April 7 it exceeded 25 thousand, with which the increase is very clear. Their position is ‘covid zero’, they attack the problem very strictly. In terms of vaccination, they immunized more than 88 percent with the complete scheme and the variant that circulates in the majority is Ómicron BA.2”.
And he continues: “Fortunately, the number of deceased is low: two per day; but I think it’s okay that they take everything with that concern because any dissemination in China can acquire important dimensions. Managing this entire population from a health point of view is complex.”
From the confinement, in Shanghai they are already beginning to experience supply problems: At times, the measure is so strict that the population is not even allowed to go out in search of essential food. The state distribution of different products (dairy products, vegetables and other first-order products) shows delays and the grocery stores that offer their own are collapsed. To this, it is added that –as is natural– the workers who carry out the distribution also face problems leaving their homes: isolation is fulfilled without exception. In this framework, as Shanghai is one of the most important financial hubs on the planet, the measures taken to restrict activities may have an impact on the international economy.
An action that caused disapproval was that of separate children from parents in case the former test positive. Later, the decision was qualified by enabling parents who were also infected to accompany their children in the same isolation center. This initiative is part of a general action in the metropolis: people who test positive they cannot confine themselves to their homes (even if they are asymptomatic or experience mild), but in centers designated for such purposes. Every week, likewise, they establish massive and mandatory diagnostic tests, with the purpose of identifying cases and isolating them to stop the spread. No innovation in the formula, only that in China they respect it to the letter. Once once more, the discussions between public health and individual freedoms are gaining strength. In Europe they are more permissive, it is true, but the deceased are more.
Europe: more permissive, with more problems
“In Germany they cannot reduce the circulation of the virus with 300 deaths per day. Here, unlike China, the situation is different because there are no restrictions and the anti-vaccine movements are much stronger,” Hozbor stresses. Continuing with his example, Germany it has an average of 154 thousand cases per day during the last week; United Kingdom72 thousand and 324 deaths; France, 131 thousand and 104 deaths; and Italy65 thousand and 144. Although the escalation of infections modifies the epidemiological landscape in the old continent, there are no indications that it is associated with the emergence of recombinant variants (which arise from two sublineages).
The CAR, a hybrid of the subvariants of Omicron BA.1 (initial) and BA.2 (the one that predominates today), was detected on January 19 in the United Kingdom and is currently being studied by the WHO. Although evaluations still remain, it is estimated that it might be 10 percent more transmissible than Omicron BA.2although it is not yet known how it might evade the immunity provided by vaccines.
“It is still too early to know what will happen with XE, in some places it seems to have a transmission advantage over BA.2, but in others it does not. The increase in cases in almost all European countries was due to BA.2, not due to any of the recombinants“He says Rodrigo Quiroga, doctor in Chemical Sciences and bioinformatician from Conicet. In fact, he continues: “None of the recombinants have become the dominant variant in any country, as they continue to represent small percentages of total cases.” From here, Humberto Debat, virologist and researcher at INTA in Córdoba, specifies: “There is still no evidence indicating an expansion or increase in frequency of XE. There are also no data suggesting greater evasion, immune escape, or association with changes in severity level. In Europe progress is being made in its detection, to standardize and study it”.
The difficulty is well known: on the European continent imposing new restrictions becomes increasingly difficult. The new normality, in this line, translates into getting used to a virus that will mutate and that, with more or less frequent outbreaks, will cause a not insignificant number of deaths. The focus will be on observing whether nations are willing to naturalize the deaths of hundreds or thousands of people per month due to Sars CoV-2.
What will happen in Argentina?
On this side of the Atlantic, however, Argentina has very positive levels of infections and deaths when compared to any other time of the pandemic. During the last seven days, recorded an average of 1,629 cases and 20 deaths each day. In the same way, the occupation of intensive care beds decreased below the line of 430, which is equivalent to 39 percent. However, in a globalized world with few border restrictions, the new strain will arrive sooner rather than later. It has not yet been detected by the institutions that are in charge of the genomic surveillance of Sars CoV-2 (the Malbrán Institute in the Ministry of Health and the Country Project in the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation), but the specialists consulted by this newspaper invite maintain the high guard. They are moments of relative calm, which can be used for learning.
pablo.esteban@pagina12.com.ar