The year of salvation.. Will 2022 write a death certificate from the Corona pandemic?

It seems that time can really fix a lot, and it is no different from the Corona pandemic that has plagued us over the past two years.

It is the nature of epidemics that they pass over time, and perhaps it is time for “Covid-19” to stop taking lives and spreading anxiety among humans.

This optimism may be early at a time when the mutated "Omicron" is sweeping the world, and infections are witnessing record highs, but the good news is that we may soon be able to breathe a sigh of relief and hope that life will return to normal, albeit gradually.

Omicron.. the beginning of the end

The appearance of the mutant "Omicron" in South Africa last October sparked a state of panic, due to the large number of mutations that scientists found in its DNA. Mutations can change the characteristics of the virus to make it more spreadable - as in the case of Omicron - or more lethal - as in the case of the delta mutant - or to completely disrupt virus replication and prevent it from spreading.

But several months after the emergence of "Omicron", it was noticed that the death rates decreased and the wave receded in South Africa without heavy losses, contrary to what everyone feared. Here, some wondered if it was possible that "Omicron" was lighter than the previous mutant. Several recent studies, some of which are still being published, have found that "Omicron" does not multiply as much inside lung cells as its previous mutant, which was destroying lung cells and leading to severe symptoms that require hospitalization, use of a respirator, and sometimes death.

In one experiment, rodents such as mice and hamsters responded weakly to omicron infection than other mutants such as delta, alpha and beta.

To be clear, Omicron has been found not to infect rodents with severe disease symptoms, and to replicate in the upper respiratory tract (nose and throat) at a much greater rate than in the lower respiratory tract (lungs).

As a result, it causes symptoms similar to those of the common cold, and avoids the severe deterioration of the lungs caused by other mutations.

Although these studies are still under peer review, which is an essential step before ratifying any research paper and relying on its results with confidence, the agreement of the results of these studies with different data indicates that this mutation may really be less dangerous than its predecessors (1) (2) (3)(4).

Although omicron is highly capable of spreading and bypassing the body's defenses, it appears to cause less severe symptoms than other mutations.

On the ground, the virulence of the virus is evaluated by measuring the rate of infections that required hospitalization, whether for treatment in emergency departments or intensive care, in addition to the number of deaths caused by infection with a mutation.

But according to the UK health security agency's report dated December 31, the percentage of people with "Omicron" who visited emergency departments or were hospitalized was 50% lower compared to those with the "Delta" mutant in the same period. (5).

The immediate conclusion here is that despite Omicron's powerful ability to spread and bypass the body's defenses, it appears to cause less severe symptoms than other mutant ones.

However, there remains a more important potential conclusion, which is that the rapid spread of this weaker strain of the virus to replace the more virulent strains may be the key to the end of this stormy epidemic, and history has given us a practical lesson in this regard on more than one occasion, when the virulent viruses mutated It got weaker over time.

(For more, read the Meydan report: The end of Corona’s time.. Why will the mutated Omicron become the beginning of the end of the pandemic?)

Searching for the flu

At that point in particular, it may be useful to go back to the relatively not-so-distant history to get some hope. We are talking specifically about the Spanish flu pandemic, because it is the closest historically, and most similar to the current situation as another respiratory infection that killed about 50 million people about a hundred years ago.

The truth is that the Spanish flu virus never passed away, but we can say that - in a way - it still lives among us disguised as another.

The influenza virus mutates rapidly, so within less than two years of the 1918-19 Spanish flu outbreak, that pandemic peaked and then spontaneously passed away. When we say that the pandemic is over, we mean that the insane rate of injuries and deaths has decreased dramatically, turning the deadly pandemic into just an ordinary seasonal infection. This does not mean that the virus itself has disappeared, as it is in the interest of the virus to mutate into less lethal forms, so as not to kill all the host organisms that ensure its continued reproduction and survival. The virus needs you in order to reproduce and continue its offspring, so it prefers to live with you calmly rather than infecting you violently and killing its chance of survival.

So, don't be surprised to learn that the Spanish flu strain (H1N1) lives among us to this day with seasonal calm, killing far fewer people.

But at great distances, the virus mutates into a virulent species due to its mixing with another influenza virus in one of the animals, such as pigs and birds.

This caused several smaller-scale epidemic outbreaks in 1957, 1968, and 2009, with relatively fewer and less frequent deaths (6).

Scientists expect the "Covid-19" virus to behave similarly.

super immune

And if mutating the virus into weakness is not enough to get rid of the epidemic, we may have another weapon: our immune system.

There are two ways to gain immunity to the virus, either by contracting it directly, or by receiving a full dose of a customized vaccine.

Until today, a total of 300 million people have been infected around the world, equivalent to the total population of the United States of America, and this is only the announced number of injuries, and it is believed that the truth is many times greater.

Of this number, 5.4 million people died as a result of infection with the virus, although the real numbers are also much higher.

As for vaccines, 50.4% of the planet's population has received a full dose of one of the vaccines to date.

While the vaccination rate of the population in some countries has exceeded the 80% barrier, some of the less fortunate countries on the African continent have not yet crossed the 1% barrier.

This is a very promising number, but it lacks justice in the distribution of vaccines. While the vaccination rate of the population in some countries has exceeded the 80% barrier, some less fortunate countries in the African continent have not yet exceeded the 1% barrier (7). But in the end, it is likely that these two factors together may succeed in achieving herd immunity if they move quickly enough. The higher the proportion of the population vaccinated, and the proportion of the population exposed to and surviving the infection, the faster this pandemic will end. Omicron has an advantage here, which is its rapid spread and reduced severity of symptoms, which could speed up the process of acquiring herd immunity around the world.

On the other hand, many people have become so-called "hybrid immunity", which is the immunity that the body acquires as a result of receiving the vaccine after several months of infection with the virus and surviving it. A good example of this is the countries of South America, which were violently ravaged by infections at the beginning of the pandemic, and are now steadily walking towards vaccinating a large proportion of the population. Several studies in this regard indicated that people with hybrid immunity can produce more powerful antibodies than those who received the vaccine without a previous infection (8), and it was found that these antibodies succeeded in resisting several mutant "Covid-19", in addition to individuals Others from the Corona family, including the virus that causes SARS.

This super-immunity can be explained by the presence of "memory B cells", which take a relatively long time to mature and produce lethal antibodies.

In the case of infection with the virus several months before receiving the vaccine, the B cells are able to grow slowly, and when the first doses of the vaccine are received, the immune reaction is enhanced by the presence of this “memory” prior to exposure to the same protein of the virus.

This may give us hope for individuals who have received the vaccine and have not been infected before, because perhaps after some time, with the reception of the booster doses of the vaccine, their B cells will be able to follow the same path, and produce super antibodies as well, to equal the immunity hybrids.

Children are the future

Another reason for optimism is the ability of the COVID-19 virus to infect children. Since the early months of the pandemic, it has become clear that children have a special ability to fight the virus, perhaps thanks to the memory of the immune system that children form as a result of repeated infections from other members of the coronavirus family to which the “Covid-19” virus belongs.

The immune system responds to infection with the virus in one of two ways, either by making antibodies that stop the virus' activity, or by killing the "T-cells" in the body that the virus has occupied in order to deprive it of the opportunity to exploit its organelles for reproduction and spread. Researchers compared the immune response of children and adults who were exposed to the “Covid-19” virus in the newly published study in the journal “Nature”, and the results were interesting, as it was found that children have a stronger antibody response than adults, not only against the virus. Not only that, compared to adults, it was found that T cells respond to the spike protein on the surface of the coronavirus twice as much than adults. This provides protection against COVID-19. This may be one of the reasons for their low rates of HIV infection.

Children have a stronger antibody response than adults, not only against the “Covid-19” virus, but against the other four members of the Corona family as well.

In addition, the "Coronavirus" family is one of the main causes of colds around the world, which periodically affects children under the age of 5 years.

These repeated infections result in antibodies that give the body short-term (ie not lifelong) immunity, and children are able to retain these antibodies for up to 12 months, which does not happen in adults.

This gives children relative immunity against all members of the Corona family, including the “Covid-19” virus.

This information will be of great use in developing vaccines specifically designed for children (9).

So, it seems that the right question here is when we can coexist with "Covid-19", rather than when this pandemic ends.According to what scientific research says, all we have to do is wait until we reach herd immunity, or until the virus mutates into its lowest form. Dangerous and turns into an endemic seasonal virus that causes colds like the rest of its family. Here the world places high hopes on the mutant "Omicron", or what follows it, to be the redeeming strain of humanity. If "Omicron" succeeds in removing its biggest competitor, the mutant "Delta" from the scene and becomes It is the most prevalent mutator in the world, and perhaps these hopes will come true.

But in a world that lacks patience, and is filled with hunger and poverty, humans cannot sit back and wait for this to happen. It seems that the pandemic will end socially before it actually ends, as governments have begun to ease restrictions on precautionary measures despite the spread of the "Omicron" mutant. People also began to abandon caution, flouting precautionary measures in many countries, in pursuit of a semi-normal life. Many have become inclined to the idea that the virus is a reality that must be lived with rather than fought or avoided. (For more, read the Meydan report: Because Corona will last forever.. and this is good news).

This does not necessarily mean that we should completely drop our guard, or imagine that infection with the virus now may not be as dangerous because of the immunity that our bodies have built.

Living with the virus has a price to pay, either by restricting our personal freedoms a little, or by risking more people losing their lives so that the rest can return to their normal lives.

But is there really a normal life after such a pandemic, full of tragedy and loss?

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