According to the head physician of the City Clinical Hospital №15 named after O.M. Filatova, in no case should you “just let everyone get sick”
A large number of myths about the new coronavirus infection and its consequences for the human body are circulating in society. Some deny the very fact of the presence of any special virus, others, admitting it, say that the danger is exaggerated. There are people who are ready to move almost to a bunker to save themselves from the “plague of the 21st century”, but there are also many who consider the imposed restrictive measures useless: they say, the majority must get sick in order to develop collective immunity …
Can coronavirus be considered a common ARVI? What is the reason for such a variety of manifestations of the disease? Why is Russia relatively low mortality from a new coronavirus infection? The Moskovskaya Gazeta correspondent spoke about this and many other things with the chief physician of the city clinical hospital No. O. M. Filatova Valery Vechorko.
– Valery Ivanovich, it is stated that the symptoms COVID-19 are very variable: some have a fever, some do not, some have a cough, some do not. Some experience muscle pain, others chest pain, others all together … What is the reason for this variability?
– The variety of manifestations of the coronavirus, its “many-sidedness”, depends on which of the organs will infect the virus. The entrance gate for him is the oronosopharynx, then the virus descends below: either into the lungs or into the digestive tract. Therefore, we observe symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat, cough, nausea, loose stools.
The virus spreads through the blood throughout the body and affects almost all systems and organs. It is also introduced into the body through the ACE receptor 2, which is found almost everywhere. So this includes muscles. These factors contribute to the variability of symptoms.
– Most of those who have been ill speak of a loss of smell and taste at the initial stages of the disease. What is the reason for this?
– The virus infects the peripheral neurons of the olfactory analyzer in the nasal passages and further, along the same neurons, makes its way into the analyzer itself, which is located in the deep structures of the brain. In addition, inflammatory edema of the nasal mucosa plays a significant role.
– I have heard the opinion that low mortality from COVID-19 in Russia is due, among other things, to the presence of strong nonspecific immunity in Russians. Do you agree with this? What other reasons, in your opinion, are the relatively low mortality rates from covid in Russia?
– In order to assert the nonspecific immunity of Russians, it is necessary to carry out genetic studies of the population or at least a sample of it. This is a very time consuming research work that is currently underway. Nobody knows what the results will be.
I think it is unlikely that the Russians have it special. It’s just that some people around the world have an adequate response to the virus, and some, about 20 percent, have it hyperimmune. And this excessive response, “cytokine storm” as it is now called, is the cause of destructive processes in the body.
So, I think, in Russia, rather the organizational measures taken by the authorities to prepare the health care system for a meeting with the coronavirus worked. While the epidemic was blazing in other countries, our well-coordinated work of all structures made it possible to restructure work and mobilize resources in the shortest possible time.
– Does mass childhood vaccination against other diseases affect immunity from covid?
– Vaccination, carried out in childhood, had a strictly narrowly specific focus. Vaccines were developed and introduced against a specific pathogen and, unfortunately for us, have nothing to do with SARS-CoV2. Therefore, now scientists around the world are fighting to develop a new vaccine. As we can see, Russia has managed to achieve certain success in this. Our scientists have created two vaccines, which have already successfully passed two stages of research, and now vaccination of the most vulnerable groups of the population is starting.
– Covid dissidents claim that we are talking about a common ARVI. Are they right?
– To argue that coronavirus is just an acute respiratory viral infection, in my opinion, is a primitive approach to a serious disease. Indeed, most of the infected suffer the disease in a mild form, resembling ARVI. But in the rest of the patients (and this is a large part) the disease can proceed along the path of covid pneumonia with unpredictable, sometimes tragic consequences. It is impossible to predict which group a particular patient will be in. Only doctors of covid hospitals can see how serious this disease is. This can also be told by those who went through the intensive care unit, went to the ventilator and survived. They are unlikely to agree that they have had the usual ARVI …
– It is often said: “One way or another, everyone will get sick, so precautions do not make sense.” Are these statements true?
– I will definitely say: no! Special measures are needed for certain categories of citizens most vulnerable to the virus. These are elderly people, people with chronic and concomitant diseases. As a rule, their disease is unfavorable. Nobody, I think, voluntarily wants to be among those whose course of the disease can be severe or extremely severe. Just letting them all get sick for the sake of herd immunity is inhumane. Who would agree to endanger the health of their elderly relatives suffering from diabetes, for example. I think no one. Therefore, it is necessary to comply with the prescribed measures of epidemiological safety and follow the path of mass vaccination. But, I repeat once again, while there is not enough vaccine, you need to take care of yourself and your loved ones.
– There was information in the news that antibodies to COVID-19 “work” only six months. Is it true? If so, why? And do vaccinations make sense in this case?
– Nobody knows for certain how much antibodies “work”, because the duration of the epidemic itself is still very, very short. This issue is being actively studied all over the world.
Immunity is not provided by some abstract G immunoglobulins, which are now massively determined by tests. Everything is much more complicated … Immunity to the virus requires the “resistance” of certain antibodies, in particular, to the protein by which the virus attaches to the cell receptor. To determine it, there are more sensitive diagnostic methods, and they are not for mass use.
In addition, there is cellular immunity – the so-called memory cells; it is they, to a greater extent, that determine the stability of immunity in natural conditions. An artificially created vaccine has an embedded antigen that promotes the production of the necessary immunoglobulin. Scientists promise to be immune to the virus for several years.
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