How could we not go to the fair in Seville this year? After several years of absence – in 2020 and 2021 because it was not held, and in 2022 as a precaution – the grandparents were more impatient than ever. It was the first family reunion. So the suffocating heat of the Real was the least of them. The noise in the booth didn’t bother us either. But today, when our grandmother is in intensive care and with a very serious prognosis. We know that COVID it’s not over.
We expected SARS-CoV-2 to become seasonal like other respiratory viruses. It looks like it won’t happen. Data such as that of the last fair in Seville, at the end of April and with summer temperatures, makes us think that we will have outbreaks in different seasons of the year.
Beginning and end of the state of emergency
On January 30, 2020, the emergency committee of the World Health Organization declared an international state of emergency due to the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan. The International Health Regulations, published in 2005, are mandatory for 196 countries and cover measures to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases.
In this document, a “public health emergency of international concern” is defined as an emergency event, which, in accordance with this Regulation, is defined as: i) representing a risk to the health of the population of other states due to the spread of the disease, and ii) a coordinated international response may be required . But it was not until March 11 that the same body announced the state of the pandemic.
On May 5, 2023, the Director of WHO announced the end of the international state of emergency. This statement does not mean that the pandemic is over. But de facto, it exempts countries from taking containment/prevention measures, since during this state of emergency, what the WHO indicated was mandatory.
Various indicators – incidence, cases, hospital and intensive care unit workload – have long indicated that the end is near. It could even have been published earlier.
Two pandemics in one
In these three years, the pandemic has had two very different moments. From early December 2019 in Wuhan until December 2021, reinfections were sporadic. But from January 2022 to the present, we are in a state that could be called an omicron pandemic.
This fact has really changed the rules of the game, and reinfections have become commonplace. It is clear that omicron subvariants manage to bypass the defense mechanisms developed against previous variants and become more contagious.
Fortunately, its evolution has not been accompanied by greater clinical severity. On the contrary, among those infected, there are fewer hospitalizations and hospitalizations in intensive care units. However, it cannot be said that this is a consequence of milder variants or sub-variants. Rather, they probably reflect the very good immunization of the population, both through inoculation with vaccines and through the natural immunity that remains after infections.
The pandemic is out of fashion
There are more to see daily news around the world. Until January 2023, almost all news outlets had at least some news about covid-19, and they disappeared, except for certain periods of time, such as a surge in cases in China last January.
If we look at Google searches, which are a great indicator of trends, and assign 100% interest in covid-19 as early as March 15, 2020, we can see that since January of this year, almost no one is interested in the disease anymore.
But this lack of interest is felt not only by the general public, but also by the specialized public. Johns Hopkins was my focal point for seeing how this whole dystopian process that we went through was going. I remember looking at the covid-19 map at dawn hoping to see some good sign. Something that didn’t exist until vaccines came along.
Because let’s not forget that we came out of this pandemic thanks to scientific research and international cooperation. If we look at this page today, which marks the “live status” of the pandemic, we can see that data on covid-19 stopped being collected around March 10, 2023.
So, in this context of relaxation, the lifting of the “international state of emergency”, which seems appropriate and undeniable, could also mean that health authorities and citizens may be relaxing too much.
On the one hand, and as far as the authorities are concerned, positive results should continue to be monitored and sequenced to identify possible new variants. And there is still a need for citizens to exercise the utmost caution when we are faced with a respiratory illness, using a mask to protect against the rest of our infection. Or if we live with very vulnerable people, protecting ourselves in situations of unrest (such as fairs and festivals, which will be very frequent this summer).
Post-COVID hangover
Although the emergency has subsided, covid-19 has not ended. The pandemic isn’t even over yet. Something that will not happen until epidemic outbreaks are no longer detected in various countries on more than two continents.
Undoubtedly, it is necessary to determine vaccination recommendations from now on. The health administrations of half the world have left us “orphans” in this respect. Based on scientific evidence, it does not seem reasonable to administer annual booster doses to the general population.
It is already known that natural infection, as well as vaccination and, above all, “hybrid immunity” (combination of natural infection and vaccination) leave at least two years a sufficient immunity memory of our elite lymphocytes (T and B). But booster doses may be needed in people with impaired protection, for example, people over 80 years of age and patients with immunosuppression due to various clinical situations (immune-dependent diseases, transplantation or immunosuppression due to anticancer therapy).
Another important topic pending on a very large scale is persistent covidwhich affects an increasing number of people and currently affects about 10% of people who have had covid.
This pathology is similar in many cases to autoimmune diseases (when the body itself is attacked by defense forces), it affects mainly women and has been the cause of alliances between doctors or researchers and the formation of patient groups.
The director of WHO himself complained about inattention during diagnostic tests covid. Less and less is being produced and sequenced, which could leave us vulnerable if new variants of the virus emerge. Health authorities should not relax surveillance to such extremes.
We have learned a lot about indoor ventilation, which helps prevent the transmission of not only covid, but all respiratory infections. Good regulation and control of indoor air quality is highly recommended.
Another unresolved issue end of masks in currently closed areas (medical centers and pharmacies). It seems the time has come to reconsider this rule and lift the restriction in pharmacies and most medical facilities, except for emergency conditions and rooms, especially those filled with waiting patients.
health systems they dried up between 2020 and 2022 and still they did not recover. There is a serious shortage of staff and resources.
This is because covid-19 is here to stay with us. We still have cases, hospitalizations and, unfortunately, deaths. All of this data is unrelated to those from April 2020, but the disease continues to kill 500 people a day globally today, up from more than 15,000 at the most inopportune moment three years ago. The pandemic has left an official record of 7 million deaths, although all estimates put the number at around 20 million.
Meanwhile, the one who writes to you also went to the April fair in his new residence, Seville. And I also have a third SARS-CoV-2 infection despite having it with delta in July 2021 and with omicron in January 2022 and despite having a full vaccination schedule.
Of course, I have almost no symptoms: it looks like an allergic outbreak, with a runny nose, sneezing and a slight scratchy throat. In fact, I postponed the test because I have allergies and I thought I had allergic rhinitis. Body pain can be confused with my return to the gym with a personal trainer. Life, no matter what, goes on.
Source: Hiper Textual
