Third wave: 5 things we know about COVID-19 that will help us cope with a spike in cases

Many of the questions we had about him COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic they have been resolved over the months. Today, about two years after the first cases in China, several countries are already vaccinating their population and are facing new waves, but now with new tools to deal with the virus.

Thanks to science, we have learned, for example, which populations are most at risk, to save lives and avoid saturation of the health system and how SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted.

Although we are in a clear decline in cases, the Government is already preparing for a third wave: “We have a kind of epidemiological silence, no evidence is being presented that we have Health Minister Hernando Cevallos said last weekend.

In this note, we summarize what we know about the disease so far:

We know how the virus is transmitted

At the beginning of the pandemic, the focus was on transmission through respiratory surfaces and droplets that people expel by coughing or sneezing. For this reason, it was recommended, since they could not travel beyond two meters, and the danger was considerably reduced if a mask was used.

Over the months, the researchers analyzed outbreaks that could not be explained by these elements alone. So, airborne transmission emerged as a possibility. The aerosols, small particles expelled when speaking that remain in the immediate environment of the infected person, were pointed out as responsible, and later. The experts asked to give it due importance.

Now, bodies like the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention admit airborne transmission: “COVID-19 spreads when an infected person exhales droplets and very small that contain the virus ”. The WHO did the same after more than 200 scientists urged the institution to give due importance to this route of transmission.

In this way, the use of masks, social distance and hygiene, added the importance of v to prevent aerosols from concentrating in one place and can infect people.

“Environmental and technical controls are essential to reduce the concentration of infectious respiratory aerosols (ie nuclei of respiratory droplets) present in the air and the contamination of surfaces and objects”, indicates the WHO regarding the prevention of contagion.

We already have vaccines

One of the most repeated phrases in recent months is that vaccines save lives. And this is a fact that has been known for decades, but made more sense during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Scientists knew from the beginning that vaccines would mark a turning point in the health crisis, which forced millions of people to stay at home and put health systems in emergency. Today, with several vaccines approved in the world, the different vaccination programs in the world show that immunization is the most effective health intervention available to face the coronavirus. In the world, COVID-19, according to the One world in Data platform of the University of Oxford.

The countries that made the most progress in immunization soon showed that the number of hospitalized and deceased fell dramatically. This is the case of Israel, the United Kingdom and Chile, for example. Although access is uneven, the data shows how efficient they can be. A recent CDC report found that y is 10 times less likely to be hospitalized, even compared to the Delta variant, the most contagious to date.

[Fuente: CDC]

Although their protection against contagion decreased due to the variants, reports from entities such as the World Health Organization and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have recently reiterated that currently available vaccines are still effective in what matters most in a pandemic: preventing deaths and hospitalizations. Why? Because in this way hospitals and people are not saturated, if they have symptoms,

There is data generated in the country

But Peru already has local data that demonstrate the effectiveness of vaccines. Studies conducted on health personnel, who were first immunized with the Sinopharm vaccines, show that this was when the dominant variants were Lambda and Alpha, also more contagious than the original.

Other studies carried out by the Ministry of Health, not yet published in detail, place the effectiveness of the vaccines used in the country above 90%, both to prevent hospitalizations and deaths.

The experts consulted by El Comercio highlight that, in the face of a third wave, it must be taken into account that about 30% of the population is immunized, especially the population at greater risk of severe COVID-19. Also, there are people who have natural immunity (those who had the disease), which leaves a smaller space for the virus to circulate. However, this does not mean that there will not be groups at risk. It is possible that what happened in other countries will happen: the new waves will be unvaccinated. Furthermore, as we have shown in other reports, it is young people who are currently occupying more and more intensive care units.

Knowledge of physicians

When the coronavirus emerged in late 2019, the disease it caused didn’t even have a name. Then the WHO called it COVID-19. Doctors used the tools that were available at the time to try to care for people who were aggravating. There were no treatments.

Now, after several waves of epidemics, doctors have a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t. Very popular options early in the pandemic, such as ivermectin and hydroxyloquine, have been ruled out. It is known that the monitoring and early detection of the decrease in blood oxygen saturation is key. Also as well as the correct administration of drugs that have proven their efficacy such as corticosteroids, which should only be applied when the patient is in a hospital environment.

Treatment alternatives

Recently, countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States have approved emergency therapies. On the one hand, there are monoclonal antibodies for mild or moderate patients at risk of getting worse, which reduce the chances of hospitalization and; and, on the other hand, interleukin 6 antagonists for serious or critical patients, which reduce death and the need for mechanical ventilation.

Some alternatives are in clinical trials that seek to prevent a person from getting worse. It is possible, say the scientists, that among them the therapies developed by Pfizer and AstraZeneca. The fundamental thing, say the experts consulted by this newspaper, is that the country also have access to these new treatments.

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