Q HEALTH – Omicron remains the most contagious variant of covid-19, according to experts. Several countries have returned to confinement, to restrictions on activities with large numbers of people and even flights have been canceled on different airlines around the world due to the number of infections in the crews.
Because this variant is considered less deadly than the others, many people have lowered their guard thinking that, when infected, they will suffer mild symptoms and increase their body’s immunity.
In fact, according to Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Center for Vaccine Education at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, quoted by CNN, “the idea of intentionally trying to catch yourself with omicron is fashionable.”
Likewise, Dr. Robert Murphy, director of the Havey Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said: “You would have to be crazy to try to infect yourself with this. It’s like playing with dynamite.”
Due to the above, the international media listed some reasons why people should not try to spread omicron on purpose:
Prolonged effects of covid-19 can be suffered
On social networks, it is common to read of people who have recovered from the coronavirus expressing that, although weeks have passed, their smell and taste have not fully recovered. Some even point out that some nights it is difficult for them to breathe or that they have a persistent cough.
A group of scientists from Mexico and Spain began an analysis of thousands of studies related to the persistent symptoms of the coronavirus in recovered patients, finding that at least three out of four people maintain at least one symptom of the disease, even when it has passed. a considerable time since his recovery.
It is not a “bad flu”
The Zoe Covid Symptom Study, led by Professor Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King’s College London, found that the symptoms of covid-19 associated with omicron turned out to be mild, mostly similar to those of a common cold.
However, experts assure that it is not a flu, but a disease that can be fatal, and even more so, for those people who have comorbidities or who are older than 65 years.
In addition, those who are vaccinated are not exempt from contracting coronavirus in its omicron variant and having complications.
The health system will be overloaded
By getting omicron, “you will sustain the pandemic and overwhelm the health care system,” warned Dr. Robert Murphy.
“Even if omicron causes less severe symptoms, the number of cases could again overwhelm those health systems that are not ready,” the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, recently warned.
Even the rapid spread of infections can lead to staff shortages in hospitals, where officials are constantly exposed to the virus.
It can be spread to children
There is an issue that currently worries the international community and it is the impact that this new variant would have on the lives of children, taking into account the examples that have been seen in South Africa.
According to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) of that country, between November 14 and 28, 2021, a total of 452 patients were admitted to hospitals in the municipality of Tshwane who presented contagion by omicron. Of these cases, 52 were infants under 2 years of age, which greatly concerned South African authorities.
Apparently, the above may occur because, in several countries, vaccines for children are barely being approved, so the vaccination schedules have not increased the percentage of immunization of infants so that they are less prone to the virus.
Source: Semana.com
