“The collapse of all kinds of basic services is very worrying due to the increase in infections”

Its incidence lies in the speed with which cases accumulate but it is conceivable that the decline will also be faster. At the population level, the difference is important with respect to the different symptoms and infection. According to what the clinicians say, the symptoms are milder and the complications of another type, milder, surely due in part to the characteristics of the variant, in addition to the fact that the component on the immunity obtained with the vaccination is important. In return, it has a greater ability to re-infect but without severity.

Do you mean that we can glimpse any light in this pandemic that seems eternal?

Vaccines are still quite effective against severe infection, but less effective against the first infection. It is necessary to detect whether or not there is virus in the upper respiratory tract but it is necessary to quantify what it entails, the many quarantines and confinements is what makes omicron different from other variants.

Can we speak of an estimable time for the infections to remit?

The problem is that the delta and omicron variants are still overlapping, they are completely independent but converge at the same time in the population. At the beginning of the sixth wave, we grew slowly, all of that was delta, and when the beginning of December arrives, like last year, which is the only one we have as a reference, the indoor social interactions begin and the precautionary measures are relaxed, with which that delta starts firing. At that moment omicron arrives, which is not that it was responsible for this great wave but it is taking advantage of it. It is not only omicron but the confluence of two variants, one that rises slowly and whose fall is expected to be proportionally slow, and another that goes faster. You have to see what happens. In epidemiology it is said that after a rapid rise the fall is rapid, but the situation is not simple either.

Are there possible new variants of the virus on the horizon?

As long as the virus circulates, the risk of new variants appearing is permanent, but we do not know what they will be like. Genomic surveillance is done to detect it, otherwise many things would go unnoticed and we would not understand why the change in the presentation of cases and the speed of infection occurs.

Does sequencing cases on time matter?

It is the way to control in a matter of symptoms, although the treatment is general, but it does not mean that it always remains the same. Antivirals are being developed that could be used preferentially for those infected with a variant with a greater probability of progressing poorly. We are not yet at the stage in which clinically it is essential to know the variant that affects for subsequent treatment, but it cannot be ruled out that it does.

In the Community they have decided that there are no more restrictions. Should we change the way we live with the virus?

If criteria are established, they should be taken into account by common sense so as not to reach levels of severity. The problem is that we wait until the situation is so serious that restrictive measures are implicitly acceptable, when we know that it is almost always late. They want to not get wet.

What is the most worrying thing right now?

The possible collapse of basic services in society. The increase in infections leads to confinements and quarantines that can lead to the interruption of basic services, not only in Health or Education but also in the collection of garbage and a lot of services, for example. We can reach a very high incidence, with many people simultaneously on sick leave. In Primary Care they have been saying for weeks that they are more than overwhelmed and this will have consequences in the medium or long term. When confinements and quarantines increase, the system does not sustain itself, as happens in England and parts of the United States, seriously at the hospital level.

How to convince the deniers?

Rational debate with them does not work, it is completely sterile, but as a society we must enforce compliance with rules of global use to protect the general health of the population, especially in circumstances like the current ones.

Are the schools safe?

They can be safe, but the instructions they had given must be strictly followed because they are still not vaccinated, especially the smallest and the virus can circulate among them, although there have been no out-of-control infections at school.