2023-12-29 15:17:00
At the end of the year, cases of coronavirus are increasing in Belgium. In question: the BA.2.86 sub-variant from Omicron, called Pirola.
What do we know regarding him, Yves Van Laethem?
It’s not new. It was discovered months ago. It has around thirty variations compared to existing variants before it. It is notably thanks to these variations that it was more easily able to impose itself on the population. Pirola has been dominant in our house since St. Nicholas Day, pretty much. It currently represents 70% of current cases.
Should we be afraid of it?
No. It is no more to be feared than the other Omicron sub-variants. It has had its experience in other countries, without having caused anything other than increases in rather banal infections among the general healthy public.
Obviously, people at risk must continue to be careful and get vaccinated to limit the effects of such sub-variants.
Is it more contagious?
In a way, yes. But probably because it is a little different from the other sub-variants. But if you were infected with the coronavirus in June and are infected once more now, you probably won’t have symptoms, because our immune system recognizes Pirola well.
No risk of hospital saturation?
There is a small increase, but it remains a usual occupation for the winter season, when we know that there are more respiratory infections. We can even say that health care is less crowded than last year.
Are the symptoms different?
Overall, there are still classic Covid symptoms like a scratchy throat, runny nose, flu symptoms. That’s for a large majority of people. To this can be added symptoms of classic conjunctivitis (red, itchy eyes) or small skin lesions, like those you might have at the start of Covid. But this only concerns a very small minority of people.
We can say that it has become a kind of little flu. We need to put the situation into perspective. I’m a little fed up with this anxiety-provoking atmosphere that my Dutch-speaking colleagues sometimes spread. We should rather see, conversely, that the situation does not currently have a big impact on individuals and society in general. There’s no point in scaremongering for nothing. The situations are no longer comparable to before. Now, it remains ripples.
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