Epidemiologist Manuel Carmo Gomes admits that Portugal may have to change its attitude in containing covid-19 due to the high transmissibility of the Ómicron variant, if it proves to cause less serious illness than the previous variants.

“If it really is much less serious than Delta in heavily vaccinated populations like ours, it might make more sense to let people immunize naturally. I’ve never advocated theories of group immunity from natural infection, but we’re in an entirely different situation , with a population practically all vaccinated and a variant that, for now, does not seem to be of great concern in hospitalizations”, he says.

In a statement to Lusa, the researcher emphasizes that it is necessary to wait a few more days and analyze the cases in the United Kingdom and Denmark – where the spread of Ómicron is more advanced – to collect more information, but warns that the country can quickly reach dozens of cases “and that is already” exhausting public health resources “to try to respond to “exponential increases” in cases.

“I don’t see that there are human resources to seek follow-up in terms of trackers, case isolation, surveillance, etc. We already have a huge number of people committed to this and primary health care can be called into question”, arbitrator, deviating: ” If that turns out to be true, it might make sense to let people naturally commit to all of our public health and primary care.”

For the specialist at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, tougher measures, such as confinement, are hardly justified in view of the “very high transmissibility” of this new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and even the “brutal increase” that occurred recently in testing has “limits”, with Manuel Carmo Gomes already a point for an average of 300 thousand daily tests to meet the needs.

“We need to be more confident that an Omicron will not fill our hospitals like it did in January. Although the risk of hospitalization may be very small, if the numbers start to be in the order of tens of thousands a day, a very small percentage of the numbers too large gives large numbers of people who end up in hospitals. This is the great danger, “he observes.

Despite the attitude considering a hypothetical change in relation to the pandemic due to this variant, the epidemiologist defends that it is still too early to consider covid-19 only as an endemic disease, since the virus dynamics have not yet stabilized.

“It is still an epidemic endemic disease, because it generates large, very abnormal rises, as in the case we are now witnessing. I would say that it has not stabilized its dynamics, it still has a lot of ‘fuel’ to consume and it will take some time before we can see what kind of endemism we are going to have”, he summarizes.

Asked about the possible reassessment of restrictive measures by the government on January 5, Manuel Carmo Gomes avoids commenting, stressing that it is “essential to better understand the impact in terms of hospitalization” and says he hopes that more information is already available about the new variant on that date.

“If it confirms that the impact is not very worrying, I don’t think it will sacrifice the economy, primary health care or public health. Now, if the signal for more worrying in terms of serious illness that an Omicron can provoke, then things change, “he said, concluding:” If the danger really isn’t very worrying, it’s preferable to have this natural immunization than chasing the fifth, sixth or seventh dose “.

In Portugal, since March 2020, 18,909 people have died and 1,303,291 cases of infection have been recorded, according to data from the General Directorate of Health.

A new variant, an Omicron, considered of concern by the World Health Organization (WHO), has been detected in southern Africa, but since the South African health authorities raised the alert on 24 November, infections have been reported in at least 110 countries. , being dominant in Portugal.