Adaya Gonzalez |
Madrid (EFE) Primary, but hardly “nothing” in hospitals and even less in ucis.
According to the latest Sentinel Surveillance Report on Acute Respiratory Infection in Primary Care (IRAs) and in Hospitals (SARI) Influenza, COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses that the Carlos III Institute has just published, in one week the incidence of covid- 19 in Primary Care has increased 13 points, from 75 cases per 100,000 inhabitants to 88. At the beginning of July it was 29.
By age groups, the highest figures continue to occur in children under 5 years of age, who are over 180.
Meanwhile, the hospitalization rate stands at 2.04 (in the previous report it was 0.75), but with fluctuations at the end of June. The rest of the respiratory infections that the report analyzes until August 6, the flu and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), remain at basal levels in both areas.
A “sung” upturn that will be followed by others just as “quiet”
Unlike these two viruses, Sars-Cov-2 “has never had a seasonal behavior,” Salvador Peiró, a specialist in Preventive Medicine and Public Health from the Health Services Research Area of the Foundation for the Promotion of Health, stresses to EFE. Health and Biomedical Research of the Valencian Community (Fisabio).
“We have had outbreaks every summer”, remarks the researcher, and “what is to be expected” is that from time to time, approximately every 5-6 months, which is when the protective effect of vaccines and natural immunity acquired after an infection begins to decline, these types of upturns occur.
If all this is added to the increase in mobility and social interactions typical of summer, the first of the last four that also takes place completely stripped of a mask, “because the upturns are sung.”
But with each contact, the immune system does not start from scratch as it happened at the beginning because it already knows the virus, although it can mutate and generate new variants, so what is foreseeable is that the peaks will be, “in general, calm”, like the that is taking place now.
This expert downplays the fact that the highest rate appears in children because, in addition to having much lower vaccination coverage than adults, they have a very mild disease.
However, he points out that today, the data is “difficult to interpret” because very few tests are carried out, and those that are carried out are self-diagnostic, not included in official statistics, which only count those that the health system performs on people over the age of 60.
Faced with symptoms, mask and distance
Dr. Javier Arranz, a member of the Infectious Diseases working group of the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFYC), agrees in stating that, “for now, the covid is not like the flu, a seasonal infection that we see in winter, but it has much more to do with social behaviour”.
Holidays, meetings, festivals, crowds… Social relations intensify in this period, which is why Arranz predicts that cases will still increase “for a few weeks” to begin “in a few weeks” to begin to decline again.
In any case, the doctor emphasizes that “it seems that the infection continues to be of low severity because hospitalization rates fluctuate a lot, but they do not remain stable”, although he recalls that, as has always happened, the more cases, the more admissions, so it cannot be ruled out that in the coming days we will also see a rise in this indicator.
On this, Peiró abounds that this new summer upturn “is actually causing very few problems: in Primary Care they notice something, in hospitals practically nothing and in ICUs, nothing.”
Although we are all seeing infections skyrocket around us, practically all of them are mild, so it is not necessary to take special measures “beyond people with symptoms, it is better if they wear a mask and seek distance from the elderly or vulnerable ”.
With them, the situation changes because their system is weakened, but this happens with all respiratory infections, not just covid; For this reason, the more the virus circulation is contained, the more protected they will be.
Towards a new reinforcement with updated vaccines
Vaccines do not prevent contagion, but they do work “very well” when it comes to preventing serious disease; For this reason, the Fisabio researcher advocates a new dose of memory for the vulnerable population this fall.
The fact that it is in autumn is merely a logistical matter to make it coincide with that of the flu, but not because it is now expected that the covid will adopt a seasonal behavior that until now it has not had.
Given that the variants that circulate have changed -the predominant one now in Spain is the XXB (33%), and in the season it has been the BQ.1 (32%) and the XBB.1.5 (31%)-, the “ sensible” would be to get a new puncture with the most up-to-date vaccines prepared by Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax.
The others, he insists, should focus on people at risk of developing severe covid, with whom extreme precautions must be taken.
So that in the event of any respiratory symptom, “it does not matter exactly whether it is covid, flu or syncytial virus, whatever it is, you must try not to infect it by adopting basic education and hygiene measures: distance and mask. And this must be forever, not because now we have a rebound, “concludes Peiró.
