Opinion – Atila Iamarino: Ômicron and the ‘end’ of the pandemic

Until 2022, we will not record more than 1 million cases of Covid-19 in the world in one day. With the omicron, we went from 2 million cases a day in the last 7 days. Bolivia and Argentina record records. Paraguay and Uruguay are almost there. Brazil does not register anything. We have completed more than a month with the Ministry of Health’s system down, in the dark even about the advancement of vaccination. Indirect evidence, such as positive tests in the private health network, already indicate that large cities like São Paulo should also break records.

It is still difficult to know what awaits us. Experiments show a preference of the omicron for the upper airways (such as the nasal cavities and pharynx) and a decrease in lung damage. But we need this confirmation in patients. And that would only explain part of the differences.

Fortunately, the vaccinated still suffer much less. In the US, where many insist on living in the hell of the unvaccinated, more than 2,000 deaths a day are recorded again. Most among those who have not been vaccinated.

As the omnin can circulate among vaccinated and many only relied on vaccines to protect themselves, its transmission is relentless. One sick person can transmit the measles virus, one of the most transmissible, to up to 13 others. But that takes about two weeks. Omicron is transmitted to six people on average every five days. In two weeks she has gone through more than two cycles of contagion and the six people have already transmitted it to another 36. For the next few months she should circulate like no other disease we have seen so far.

In vaccinees, symptoms are more flu-like, with a runny nose, nasal congestion and a scratchy throat. You probably have acquaintances who are experiencing these symptoms, if not too.

Which is not to say that the omicron will immunize everyone and end Covid. Even if it causes fewer deaths in each case, there will still be many cases. And the virus has already shown itself to be quite capable of change. What awaits us after the omicron are other variants with more immune escape. Like the influenza virus that causes the flu does, every year.

This vaccine protection may indicate the way out. After the 1918 flu pandemic, we continued to have many deaths over the next few years, but they were decreasing. The virus doesn’t seem to have gotten any weaker. The 1918 influenza has already been recovered from bodies of the time and is not very different from the H1N1 that circulates to this day. Maybe we’re the ones who got stronger.

In 1918, people had no previous immunity against influenza and it caused symptoms we don’t see now, such as neurological, smell and vision problems. Probably because, without an immune barrier, the virus was able to infect the whole body. As other flu waves came, those who survived developed immunity. From then on, no matter how much the virus managed to escape immunity enough to be transmitted, many remained protected against more serious cases. Today, influenza finds almost no one without a modicum of immunity, except for children, who are not so affected by the disease – and even so, they benefit a lot from vaccines. Perhaps an adult today who has never had contact with influenza or vaccines could have an infection as severe as in 1918.

If the coronavirus behaves like this, generating different variants to the point of spreading, but not so different that they invade the whole body of immunized people, severe cases of Sars-CoV-2 could be increasingly rare as we get vaccinated and who insists on not getting vaccinated gets Covid repeatedly.