The worst version of the virus has arrived

The BA.5 variant far surpasses the previous types of omicron and raises the epidemiological situation to a new level

Source: Washington Post

Translation: Innovator

USA“The worst version of the virus has arrived” on behalf of the editorial board of “Washington Post” newspaper. The article titled “The pandemic is not over” was published. We present the article translated from English.

A pandemic is a brutal tug-of-war with mother nature. The wave of infection has killed millions of people. Even more people could have died, which could have been prevented only by highly effective vaccines.

here is coronavirus it revives again, mutates, bypasses the resistance of the body – the immune system, in short, continues its march. The interpretation of the appearance of the BA.5 variant of the virus is as follows: the end of this march is not in sight.

What is the BA.5 option? It is the newest subspecies of the omicron variant that caused a massive wave of infections and swept the world in late 2021.

USAThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the BA.5 variant and its related variant BA.4 account for up to 70 percent of infections in the United States, based in part on modeling.

These two new variants are meant to lighten the load of the BA.2 that came before them.

The coronavirus species have strange names, they sound strange to the ear. But these abstract names should not distract us from the real threat of a powerful variant like BA.5.

Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, says BA.5 is the worst strain of the coronavirus we’ve seen so far.

The professor says that the BA.5 variant leads to widespread evasion of the immune system, surpassing previous types of omicron in this work and raising the epidemiological situation to a new level.

Erik Topol attributes the lack of a particular increase in the number of hospitalizations and deaths among those infected with the coronavirus to the fact that we gathered a lot of immunity during the winter wave of omicron.

However USAis still stuck in the black peak of the pandemic shows that there are other aspects of the new option and those aspects should be carefully monitored and investigated. Moreover, let’s not forget that new variants are increasing infections in Europe.

The main difference of the BA.5 variant is in its biological structure. The evolutionary process has given it the ability to adapt to the environment, that is, the ability to transmit, develop, evade the immune system.

Dr. Topol says that this option is noticeably different from all the previous ones. One of the main characteristics needed to be selected is the evasion of the infection by the organism’s immune system. According to Professor Topol, in none of the studies carried out to date, a variant has been found that is able to evade immunity as well as BA.4 and BA.5.

It is not yet clear whether the BA.5 variant causes more severe disease. But if the virus is spreading, then there is a need to strengthen certain measures to alleviate its consequences – high-quality face masks, better ventilation of closed spaces, staying away from crowded places.

The most important issue is whether there is a need for booster doses against new variants of the infection. Does it make sense to use booster doses against earlier variants of the virus that have disappeared from the population?

in the United States food products and medicine The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has advised vaccine manufacturers to develop bivalent or bivalent vaccines that target the old and new variants.

Undoubtedly, this is a logical recommendation, because it is necessary to quickly adapt to the situation, to move smartly, as Canadian hockey player Wayne Gretzky said, to slide not where the puck is, but where it is rolling.

But time is short. Also, who knows what other options will appear in the remaining months of the year. Therefore, in a broad perspective, there is no such thing as chasing options.

It is better to produce a new generation of vaccines that will form a longer-lasting, more durable, more comprehensive immunity and prevent the spread of infection. Serious research is underway in this direction, but the end of the road is not yet visible.