Despite the relaxation of COVID-19 restrictive measuresthe variant of omicron BQ1.1 is taking center stage. The Ministry of Health indicates that this variant, which has shown a rapid rate of growth in other European countries, was detected in Spain in the first week of October in 3.6% of the samples. This is reflected in the latest report from the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies (CCAES) published by Health, which also claims that this omicron lineage was already circulating in Spain and has been listed as a variant of interestafter the European health authorities have warned of the need for monitoring,
Variant BQ1.1
As explained by the Secretary of Public Health of the Generalitat, Carmen Cabezas, BQ1.1 it is “a small variation” of the BA.5 variant of omicron, which is the one that currently predominates around the world while experts warn that, although it may be “more transmissible”, it does not mean that it is “more serious” than to the variants known so far.
Symptoms
Symptoms of this new variant they are quite similar to the variant and sub-variants of omicron. The main ones of all include fever, headache, sore throat, general malaise, runny nose and episodes of diarrhea. In the case of this variant, everything seems to indicate that infected people do not suffer from the initial symptoms of other variants of the virus. coronavirusas the loss of smell and taste. Even so, it is not excluded that they can manifest themselves on some occasions.
Cases of COVID-19 will increase due to these variants
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) warns. COVID-19 subvariants BQ1 and BQ1.1 will cause an increase in COVID-19 cases “in the coming weeks or months”. In addition, at least five countries of the European Union and the European Economic Area (EU / EEA) have detected the circulation of the variant during week 40 of 2022. Also note that BQ1 and its underlines BQ1.1 will become the dominant strains of SARS -CoV2 in the EU / EEA from mid-November to early December 2022.
Older age, the main predictor of COVID-19 mortality
A state-of-the-art ‘Machine Learning’ type artificial intelligence algorithm confirms that age is the main one predictor of mortality from COVID-19 in hospitalized patients. This is a study conducted on a sample of 1,246 patients and is published in the Open Respiratory Archives, the open access scientific journal of the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR).
“The goal of our study was to identify which clinical and analytical parameters, among those we routinely use in clinical practice, can predict patients with a higher risk of dying from COVID-19. To do this we have relied on the use of an algorithm to overcome the sample and design limits offered by the studies published to date “, explains pneumologist Irene Nieto, member of SEPAR and first signatory of the study.
Experts answer
Experts help us to solve some problems of Antena 3 Noticias.
- Are these new sub-variants more contagious than the old ones? They explain to us that it seems so, although not much more than the rest that we already know.
- Are they more contagious, but are they also more dangerous? Although their contagion is faster, they don’t seem to be more dangerous.
- If we have already been infected with omicron, can we be infected again? If it were possible.
- There are two months to Christmas, will they be the predominant ones? Most likely, they will be the most predominant for Christmas.
