(Fighting against New Coronary Pneumonia) Liang Wannian: The current epidemic cannot be regarded as "influenza"

  China News Agency, Shanghai, April 10 (Reporter Li Chun) "I still want to emphasize that this variant of Omicron is not influenza, and the current epidemic cannot be regarded as a 'flu-like' epidemic."

  Liang Wannian, executive vice president and professor of the Vanke School of Public Health and Health of Tsinghua University, who is participating in the epidemic prevention and control work in Shanghai, said in an interview with the media as above. pointed out.

  Liang Wannian said that the new coronary pneumonia epidemic caused by the Omicron variant is significantly different from the flu.

When measuring its harm, it is necessary to comprehensively consider the transmission capacity, the severity of the disease, the occurrence of death and severe illness.

  The group perspective is important when measuring the severity of a disease.

Liang Wannian said that the case fatality rate of Omicron is much higher than that of influenza in general, from the perspective of the epidemic process in some parts of the world and in China.

Especially for the elderly, the case fatality rate is dozens of times higher than that of ordinary influenza, and even a hundred times higher for the elderly over 80 years old.

  Ormicron variants are susceptible to all populations, especially some vulnerable populations and the elderly.

Liang Wannian said that Shanghai has a large proportion of the elderly population, and the absolute number of vulnerable groups such as patients with underlying diseases is very large. Once infection occurs, even if the incidence of severe illness and death of individuals is low, it will still be a huge number for the group. .

"A little carelessness will cause great damage to these groups, including some other vulnerable groups, and must be taken seriously."

  Experts also pointed out that the constant mutation is a feature of the new coronavirus, and the direction of mutation is not clear.

In the context of the widespread epidemic, if the virus mutates, it will cause greater harm to people's lives and health.

  In addition, once the epidemic spreads widely, it will cause a run on medical resources and affect the demand for daily medical and health services.

The "secondary hazards" caused by the epidemic must be taken into account.

  "Combining these aspects, we can't think that Omicron is a 'big flu'." Liang Wannian pointed out that some countries in Europe and the United States that have experienced the epidemic of Omicron mutants go back and evaluate the degree of harm. One indicator is Excess mortality, which is the excess compared to the number of deaths in the same time period previously.

"The excess mortality rate is high in many countries."

  He emphasized that the current prevention and control strategy for Omicron is scientific and based on the understanding of this variant.

The perception that "Omicron is the 'big flu'" should be discarded.

Omicron is not the flu, let alone the current epidemic as "flu-ification".

(Finish)