Silent Ómicron, behind the new inadvertent rebound of Covid

• Health WHO warns: the Covid pandemic is "far from the end"

It is not the focus of global concerns, but the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is still out there.

Now it features a new variant: the BA.2, also called

of its predecessors.

The WHO maintains vigilance because in recent weeks in Europe, "

," Mike Ryan, executive director, pointed out this week. of the Health Emergencies Program of the international organization.

Global infections by Covid rose for the second consecutive week and reached 12.3 million,

7% more than in the previous seven days.

A figure that the agency believes is underestimated, because in reality it would be higher, given that many countries have greatly reduced testing, due to the proliferation of mild and asymptomatic infections.

and is especially present in the current wave of infections in East Asia and the Pacific.

This rise in cases is illustrated by Germany.

.

Therefore, in order to be prepared for a possible new wave in the fall, the German country plans to buy a vaccine that will cover the entire spectrum of Covid variants known so far.

From the European office of the WHO,

, its director, this week

about the rise in coronavirus infections on the continent after several weeks of declines.

.

At the same time, he points out that Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands are the states with the highest growth in the rate of infections and justified this rise in the greater transmissibility of the BA.2 variant and

.

Impact of BA.2 in Spain

Spain

, although a certain stabilization is faltering with a slight rise in cases caused by BA.2.

according to the latest Health report.

It is true that this Friday has been the last that we can have that complete 'photo' of the situation, since as of Monday the accounts will no longer record the accumulated incidence in the entire population, but only in those over 60 years of age.

For now, our country will enter the new Covid transition phase with an

, which has increased by 25 points since Monday to 461 cases of cumulative incidence, as well as the number of new infections, which

although hospital admissions continue to decline.

And this is the data on which Health is based to take this step: the least pressure on hospital care.

In the week-end report,

,

in intensive care units and an occupancy that fell from 6.06% to 5.59%, with a total, currently, of 510 admitted.

And the same trend occurs among those hospitalized for the virus on the ward, with 189 fewer patients (4,497 in total throughout Spain) and a rate that drops from 3.7% to 3.6%.

"We still cannot say that Covid is over," explains Javier Arranz, spokesman for the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (Semfyc).

Regarding the new predominant variant and new spikes, he assures that "

.

But Arranz takes the opportunity to point out that "

. In addition, now we take fewer preventive measures and that can have an influence."

Although BA.2 is more transmissible than its predecessor, "

," he concludes.

"We only see hospitalizations in the cases of people with other pathologies, in which any infection can destabilize their situation," says the family doctor.

For Rosario Menéndez, pulmonologist and director of the Respiratory Infections Research Program of Separ (Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery), it is a "new wave", but if she has to answer what its impact will be, she is cautious.

"We have had six waves and we always hope that it will be the last.

," underlines Menéndez.

Reinfecting is possible with BA.2

The fact that

, pointed out the Irish expert Luke O'Neill, professor of biochemistry at Trinity College Dublin, this week to the Irish public channel

as collected by EFE

The BA2 variant of omicron is "much more contagious" and "it will be almost impossible not to get it," O'Neill warned.

In fact, an article in

warns that reinfecting with new variants is plausible.

In it, Wendy Barclay, head of infectious diseases at Imperial College London,

"even though there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between them." .

This expert assures that the variant has "a double-hit capacity" with many changes in the Spike protein, which means that the antibodies that the population has produced thanks to previous vaccines or previous infections cannot allow it to "see the virus very well".

Still, Barclay insists that "it

, because we can see that it amplifies the immune response and provides potentially better protection against all the other variants that are going to come along. "

a little later".

Fall in mortality, the positive side

Factors such as

, however, make the WHO remain optimistic, although Kluge recalled that the virus killed 22,000 people in the region last week, especially in countries with low vaccination.

The world registered

last week , which is the lowest figure since the end of March 2020, despite the fact that global infections increased again, according to data. of the WHO.

For two years, shortly after the WHO declared that Covid had become a pandemic,

, with contagion figures then almost identical to those of the last weekly epidemiological report of the WHO.

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Know more

• covid 19

• Coronavirus

• Omicron variant

• Vaccines

• regrowth

• Health

• Europe

• Germany

• Netherlands

• Ireland

• United Kingdom

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