We are behind the top of the Omicron wave in Prague, not in the rest of the country yet, warns Konvalinka iROZHLAS
“Most colleagues who monitor the data agree that we are nearing the top or on top of it. We are probably behind the top in Prague, not yet in the rest of the republic. In other words, we are a few weeks behind the countries such as Denmark or the United Kingdom, which are already clearly behind the Omicron wave, ”says biochemist Jan Konvalinka. Our disintegration is three to four weeks earlier than what happened in London, for example.
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“It can be seen that the number is no longer rising because we are 50 percent positive – but the tests are not done enough to find out how many there really are,” adds the head of the research group at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
Listen to Barbora Tachecí’s entire conversation with Jan Konvalinka
The relative positivity of tests is thus important for biochemists. “This means how many tests that are given, whether epidemiologically or preventively, are positive. Now we come to numbers that are comparable to the highest of the epidemic in the spring of last year and in the fall of 2021. That is, almost every second, when we are between 40 and 50 percent, “he explains, adding that real numbers are several times higher, but many times nobody knows.
Immunity rate?
Scientist and physician Marián Hajdúch, who specializes in molecular and translational medicine at the University of Olomouc, published the interim results of the Preval2 study. The biochemist describes the study as something he himself has been asking for since the beginning of the pandemic, and finally we have the first results.
“And it turns out very interesting – first, PCR tests were performed on a representative sample, so far in northern Moravia. And it turns out that 2.8 percent of the people who tested are positive for PCR at the moment. That’s by far the most we’ve ever seen. And more than 80 percent of people seem to have a deal, which means they’ve met before. That is, the coveted penetration that many people are already talking about in the spring of 2020, that we are already approaching it, so now, after two years, they are already right, “describes Konvalinka and reminds that these are aggregate figures, so they include vaccinated.
“It means good news for the coming weeks -, that more than 80 percent of people probably won’t end up in the ICUs, they probably won’t end up in the hospital and probably won’t die – only the oldest or seriously ill people. They are still in danger, “he thinks.
But according to Konvalinka, there is also bad news, we still do not know how long this protection will last.
“I firmly hope that it will last longer against hospitalization and death, but we cannot know that. The second bad news is that we certainly have at least 200,000 people over the age of 65 who are not protected in any way. They have not been vaccinated and do not appear to have suffered from the disease. So there’s still a big time bomb. “
He reminds us that these people are at the moment the most dangerous circumstance of our pandemic situation, which is very different from Denmark or Great Britain, which everyone is so happy to brag about.
Biostatist and Director of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic (IHIS) Ladislav Dušek points out that 70 percent of unvaccinated patients are still in the most severe conditions in hospitals, which is the greatest risk of this wave.
“Yes, that’s the way it is. I would just like to add that the 30 percent of those vaccinated are on average 15 years older. In other words, they are really the very old seniors and very often with comorbidities, which even the vaccination did not help. Because their immune system is so weak that it no longer responds well. ”
Unvaccinated?
People in our country can already be booked for the Novavax vaccine, but there is not much interest yet. Konvalinka claims that a sociologist could answer this question better.
“Personally, I see two answers there as an amateur. First, they oppose vaccination and argued the inexperience of the mRNA vaccine, new technology, and the potential dangers of some gene manipulations that have been refuted a hundred times – but if you hear RNA, you may have this association – so in fact for many of them was an excuse. They are against vaccination and these were surrogate reasons. I’m afraid that’s one explanation. “
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The second reason is fatigue and the current atmosphere.
“People feel that vaccination doesn’t make sense, that we are already behind the fact that omikron is already a rhyme that will vaccinate us all. And that omicron vaccination still doesn’t work, so it doesn’t make sense. None of what I just said is completely true, and some of it is not even true at all. But unfortunately this narrative, this way of telling and understanding things, now prevails. ”
“It is absolutely demonstrable that the booster protects very well against hospitalization and death. And let me remind you that in recent days, we have people over the age of 50 who die every day with a covid. We’ll see if it’s really with the covid or the covid. But I’m afraid that, as always, it will mean a few dead in the end. ”
“Omikron is milder, everyone is aware of it, but few people say it’s not mild. And the data from Preval2 actually explain to us why we have relatively few people in hospitals and why so few people die, even though we have such huge positivity numbers. And the main reason is not that the omicron is so much weaker. A little is, but not by much. But the main reason is that more than 80 percent of us are already protected in some way, “concludes Jan Konvalinka.
You can find the whole show of Barbora Tachecí in the audio recording.
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