specialists recommend booster vaccinations

The cases of Covid-19 nationwide have doubled in the last two weeks driven by the increase in the city of Buenos Aires and, although the specialists have stressed that the situation should not trigger an alarm, they have recommended applying the booster doses already that beyond the new circulating variants, the cause could be associated with a drop in immune defenses due to the time elapsed since previous infections and the placement of vaccines.

“At the national level, what we see is that in the last week the cases have doubled compared to the previous one, going from 130 to 252 daily averages; these data are a floor because they still have to be uploaded but also because there is a marked decrease in tests, but they still increased,” physicist and Conicet researcher Jorge Aliaga told Télam.

And he immediately added: “Of course it is still a very low number compared to what we live”.

As Aliaga analyzed on the basis of data from the Ministry of Health, “the increase in the national average is driven by the curve of the city of Buenos Aires, where cases have tripled compared to two weeks ago, going from 35 to 98 daily averages. also increasing in the province of Buenos Aires where the number is lower (from 43 to 69 daily averages)”.

As for the causes driving this increase, Aliaga – who has been analyzing the data since the beginning of the pandemic – stressed that “as always, they are multicausal”.

“On the one hand, the Country project (sequence of the genomes of the circulating coronavirus) had detected more contagious variants; but it also happens that every year the gatherings increase and people lock themselves up with air conditioning without ventilation,” she explained.

In this context, “what one would expect would be for them to continue growing until January, when people go on holiday and disperse”.

Infectologist Leda Guzzi agrees “Cases have seen a slight increase in recent weeks against a backdrop of very limited testing.”

For the specialist and member of the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases (SADI), “the regional situation is worrying, particularly in Brazil, where the health authorities have again imposed the use of chin straps at airports and on flights this week”.

“Every time something like this happens in the region, it ends up having an impact on the country, which is why the increase in Brazil is worrying and suggests an increase in cases,” he warned in dialogue with Télam.

Guzzi recalled that “we are still in a pandemic, the virus exists; what vaccines have achieved in the world is enormous, but the virus continues with its ability to mutate and generate new waves, so our country is not exempt from viral dynamics.”

“The regional situation is worrying, particularly in Brazil, where health authorities have again imposed the use of chin straps at airports and on flights this week”LedaGuzzi

The new variants

Regarding the new variants detected, the molecular virologist Humberto Debat, member of the SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Inter-Institutional Argentine Project (PAIS), reassured: “They are still Omicron subvariants and almost the entire world population has suffered an infection from Ómicron, so the likelihood of this having a major impact on health is very low even if the number of infections increases,” he said.

“We are in a phase of the pandemic with favorable epidemiological markers because, although there are reports in different parts of the world of growth of new infections, they are reported about 350,000 cases a daywhich is more than 10 times lower than what we had in Omicron’s peaks, and there has been a sustained decline in deaths for six months, with around a thousand deaths a day globally,” he said.

The cases in Brazil

Regarding the increase in cases in Brazil, Debat explained that it could have some association with new variants that are circulating; For example, an Omicron sublineage called BE.9 was recently described in the Amazon, and in Rio de Janeiro, the frequency of BQ1.1 is increasing.

“Amazon variant BE.9 has no record of being reported anywhere else in the world, so we don’t know if it has started to spread, and BQ1.1 we know has a 30% growth advantage over other sublines of Ómicron and has been detected in 77 countries worldwide, including Argentina, Peru, Chile, Colombia”.

However, for the researcher, the key to the increase in cases may not have to do so much with the new subvariants but rather with the fact that several waves of infections occurred several months ago, lowering the levels of protection of people who had Omicron more than 180 days ago.

“On the other hand, there is a radical decrease in the immunization rate by (vaccine) booster shots which is something you see all over the world,” he added.

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For his part, the infectious disease specialist Lautaro De Vedia agreed that “there is an increase in cases, but with mild symptoms” and assured that in this context “vaccination continues to be very important”.

Along the same lines, Guzzi argued that “the most important thing in this scenario is the application of doses of reinforcement: a second reinforcer for everyone and a third reinforcer for people with risk factors and over 50, and by remember the importance of constant cross ventilation inside and cough into the crook of the elbow.

“We must also bear in mind that if a wave occurs again, all care must be resumed, including the use of chin straps indoors,” said the specialist, for whom, although people are exhausted, it is not free get infected even if mildly with coronavirus.

“It is a virus that has demonstrated not only its ability to lethality, but also to cause prolonged symptoms”He insisted.

Guzzi underlined that “every infection represents a risk and according to the scientific literature this risk increases with the increase in infections, so it is important to try to mitigate it”.

“We already know what we have to do. On the one hand, apply the corresponding vaccines; on the other hand, if it is not possible to use the chin straps in closed places where you stay for a long time, ventilation is essential, so even with the air on, it is It’s important to leave something open so that the air can be renewed,” concluded Aliaga.