“People get worse very quickly”: doctor told the truth about the fourth wave of coronavirus in Belarus – Charter’97 :: News from Belarus – Belarusian news – News from Belarus – Belarus
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The number of severe patients has doubled.
The Ministry of Health announced that the fourth wave of coronavirus began in Belarus more than a week ago. Since then, Belarusians have had more questions than answers. Is the delta strain to blame? How much have the risks for infected people increased? What is the situation in hospitals? Officially, everything is “normal”: so far, Belarusians hear from high-ranking officials only about the importance of vaccination, but not statistics that can be trusted.
Site zerkalo.io on condition of anonymity, he asks important questions about the fourth wave to a physician working in a hospital in Minsk.
Who is the expert?
The expert is a doctor who works in one of the health care institutions in Minsk. Unfortunately, given the political crisis in the country, the name of this person cannot be given.
Is the fourth wave of coronavirus related to that delta strain?
The doctor says it’s hard to tell. Now in hospitals in Belarus, methods are not used that allow you to determine which strain of the virus in a particular patient.
“Judging by the course of the disease, many patients really have a delta strain,” our interlocutor believes. – But it is impossible to say for sure based on reliable data. Probably, the fourth wave is due to the appearance of this strain in Belarus, as well as seasonal characteristics – favorable weather for the virus, as well as the influx of people to cities: pensioners came from their dachas, students returned to large cities.
You said “the scale of the fourth wave.” Is it all that bad?
The number of patients with a more severe course of covid, according to the doctor, has increased:
– Subjectively – it is significant, but it is difficult to operate with numbers without having them in your hands. Within one department, there are 1.5-2 times more patients with severe disease than what was [до начала четвертой волны]… For example, now 20-30 beds may be occupied more than the number of the hospital.
In addition, hospitals, which were covid in the first wave, will again be redesigned for the coronavirus. Then they returned to normal operation, and now they are again “coronavirus”.
The doctor says that, as an ordinary employee, he has access to the hospital’s database. And if he wanted, he could calculate the statistics on the patient: how their number changed, how many days they needed for treatment. But this is largely useless.
– To draw clear conclusions for a country, you need a sample of more than one hospital. To be honest, we both lay heavy in the first wave, and they are now. It is difficult to compare bad with bad, – the doctor believes.
It’s clear. Then what are the general differences of this wave from the previous ones?
– Firstly, the fourth wave is much larger than the previous ones. This is a subjective opinion. – Secondly, now the disease is more severe. In many patients, persistent, difficult to stop hyperthermia (high temperature. – Ed.), A greater percentage of people with respiratory failure. The disease itself is very unstable: the patient often gets worse without visible prerequisites and very quickly. Third, the contingent. If earlier the age of “problem” patients was 60+, now it is 40-60 years old, often a severe course and in patients 20-30 years old.
At the same time, the doctor notes that young people, as a rule, tolerate the virus more easily.
– But this is not as strong a statement as before, – note the interlocutor.
And if I become infected with this delta strain, what are the symptoms?
Regardless of the covid strain, the most common symptoms are the same.
– All the same – shortness of breath, cough, fever. But anosmia (loss of smell. – Approx. Ed.) Somehow faded into the background. Now it appears on the 5-6th day, when the fever is raging with might and main.
True, according to the doctor’s observations recently, the temperature of patients is usually higher than 38 ° C, now it is already getting closer to 39 ° C.
But the doctor did not confirm the rumors about diarrhea as an obligatory symptom of the delta strain:
– Diarrhea is generally a well-known symptom of covid. It is more common now than before, but not all over the place. Well, 5-10 percent have it.
If the temperature of the patients is getting higher, maybe the treatment is now changed in a different way? They say that even injections in the stomach inject …
The abdominal shots that some scare people use are unfractionated heparin (UFH) shots, a drug commonly used to keep blood from clotting. In modern medicine, it is no longer used, having switched to more advanced drugs. However, the doctor does not hide: in the summer there really was a practice of using such heparin.
– Then there were interruptions with normal low molecular weight heparins (LMWH) such as Fragmin or Fraxiparin. But now they have already appeared – this is the situation of doctors. – However, they are also done in the stomach – nothing has changed here. Coronavirus treatment protocols change regularly. For example, the last order is number 900, it is July. And before that they changed very often. The latest version has nuances and contradictions, but you can work with it plus or minus.
Among the nuances, the doctor calls the presence of hydroxychloroquine in the protocol, which everyone in the world has long abandoned:
– It does not work and is not at all harmless. It is not necessary to appoint him – I and my colleagues try not to do this. But there are doctors who follow the protocol literally. In my opinion, it hurts the patient. Also, the dosages of hormones do not match those in RCTs (randomized clinical trials). But here it is worth making a concession to our realities – the required dosage is simply not produced in Belarus. The RCT has proven the effectiveness of 6 mg, we have 8 and 4 mg in the order.
Well, will the vaccine help you not to catch this delta strain?
– Vaccination really reduces the chances of getting sick, and most importantly – getting sick seriously, – he says. – This is not a 100% guarantee: sometimes only the probability decides whether you will live or not. I will say this: I rarely see vaccinated patients in the hospital, but more importantly, our resuscitators practically do not see them.