BAGHDAD – In the luxurious shisha lounge of one of Baghdad’s new restaurants, customers sit on fragrant fruity tobacco at gold-edged tables, flanked by a giant video screen and views of the Tigris River. It’s a weeknight, but Sky Lounge in the Dawa restaurant is full of people partying like in 2019: no masks, no distance, no problem.
“I live the 2019 lifestyle ahead of the coronavirus,” said Ali al-Khateeb, 37, a businessman as he sat at a green velvet chair pulling smoke from a glass water pipe with gold relief. “As Iraqis, we are not afraid of death. It is a psychological factor that can strengthen a person’s immunity. ”
His friend Rami Riadh, 34, also a businessman, said he threw away his mask at the airport when he returned to Baghdad from Amman, Jordan, a week ago. “It feels like we’re living in a different world here,” he said.
As coronavirus rates have dropped, Iraqis are taking the recommended precautions for viruses, and many endorse the dubious belief in their own immunity. The belief, mocked by scientists, has been publicly endorsed by local and local health officials and some religious leaders.
“We have achieved a kind of herd immunity,” said one of Baghdad’s senior health officials, Dr. Jasib al-Hijami, wrote in a Facebook post in December. He reached out by phone this week and said he was still standing by the comments.
Such misconceptions and the widespread misconception of virus safety that it has brought about, even though there are more contagious new variants of the virus around the world, and it lays the foundation for a major new outbreak, fear public health experts.
The reported infection rate in Iraq has steadily dropped from more than 3,000 new cases per day in November to less than 800 on most days in January. The decline has contributed to what experts say is a false sense of security.
“Honestly, it’s the calm before the storm,” said Ali Mokdad, director of Middle East Initiatives at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “There is a potential wave going on unless Iraqis are vaccinated or take social distance.”
Dr Mokdad says the decline in infection rates can be partly explained by Iraq’s temperate winter, in which windows are kept open. The relative youth of the Iraqi population may declare fewer deaths and hospitalizations.
Other experts suspect that the actual number of cases of coronavirus in Iraq is likely to double the reported number tripled.
But as official numbers have dropped, Iraqi officials have eased restrictions.
At the height of the pandemic last year, Iraq closed mosques, schools and restaurants as its decrepit healthcare system struggles to cope. These restrictions weakened last fall as infection rates dropped.
Now the government is waging a losing battle to persuade Iraqis to wear masks and to stop shaking hands and kissing cheeks, the same-sex general greeting in Iraq.
Covid19 vaccines>
Answers to your vaccine questions
Although the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, medical workers and residents of long-term care institutions are likely to be first. If you want to understand how this decision is made, this article will help.
Life will return to normal when society as a whole gets enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries approve a vaccine, they will be able to vaccinate at most a few percent of their citizens in the first few months. The unvaccinated majority will still be vulnerable to infection. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines offer strong protection against disease. But it is also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they are infected, because they experience only mild symptoms or not at all. Scientists do not yet know whether the vaccination also blocks the transmission of the coronavirus. For now, even vaccinated people will have to wear masks, crowds inside, and so on. Must avoid. Once enough people are vaccinated, it will be very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people who can become infected. Depending on how quickly we as a society reach the goal, life may begin by the fall of 2021 to approach something as normal.
Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that may be approved this month clearly protect people against Covid-19. However, the clinical trials that have yielded these results have not been designed to determine whether people who have been vaccinated can still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. It remains a possibility. We know that people who are naturally infected by the coronavirus can spread it while experiencing no cough or other symptoms. Researchers will study this question intensively as the vaccines begin. Meanwhile, even vaccinated people will have to think of themselves as possible distributors.
The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered like a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection will not be different from what you received before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccinations, and none of them have reported serious health problems. But some of them felt transient discomfort, including pains and flu-like symptoms that usually last a day. It is possible that people after the second shot may be planning to take a day off from work or school. Although these experiences are not pleasant, it is a good sign: it is the result of your own immune system encountering the vaccine and getting a powerful response that will provide long-lasting immunity.
No. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use a genetic molecule to replenish the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse with a cell so that the molecule can slide. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. Each of our cells can contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules at any one time that they produce to make their own proteins. Once those proteins are made, our cells cut the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules that make up our cells can only survive for a few minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is designed to resist the cells’ enzymes a little longer, allowing the cells to produce extra viral proteins and trigger a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only take a few days at most before being destroyed.
The campaign was undermined by local and provincial health officials who claimed that the rate had dropped because enough Iraqis had been exposed to the virus to secure herd immunity.
But public health experts doubt Iraq is close.
Herd immunity is widely believed to occur when 70 percent or more of a population is infected or vaccinated. It offers a virus less potential hosts and offers the population some resistance to an outbreak.
Dr Mokdad says that Iraq does not do the random testing that makes it possible to determine accurate infection rates, but that the best estimate is about 20 percent of the population.
“It is unacceptable that trained Iraqis and officials should come and say ‘we are immune’ or have some other tension, because it gives a false sense of security,” he said.
At mosques, some preachers told worshipers not to fear the virus as long as they followed God.
Even Iraq’s health minister, Dr. Hassan al-Tamimi, did not try to correct the incorrect information.
Asked about the immunity of the herd, he did not endorse or refute the idea. In an interview, he responded by attributing the decline in death rates to the country’s increased ability to treat Covid-19 cases and the decline in infection rates as divine protection.
“The most important factor is the mercy of God,” said Dr. Al-Tamimi said.
He expressed concern about the highly contagious variant of the virus recently identified in Britain, and the government has taken steps to prevent infection from coming from abroad.
Last week, the government banned access for most non-Iraqi travelers from 20 countries with high infection rates, including those with the variant. But the restriction leaves huge gaps for people to come from other countries where the variant has been identified.
Dr Riyadh Lafta, a professor of epidemiology at Al Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad, said he expected another, more serious wave to hit by March or April, not only endangering those with weakened immunity, but also healthy younger people.
“We are afraid of another wave like what happened in Europe,” he said. ‘This is therefore the risk and threat we are waiting for. Unfortunately, many people are not yet very aware of this. ”
Iraq, a country of 40 million people, is ill-prepared for a second wave.
Damaged infrastructure, a system of assigning control over ministries to political factions based on loyalty, and rampant corruption have devastated the country’s healthcare system. Last summer, shortages of oxygen cylinders led to riots at some hospitals among family members who were forced to try to purchase life-saving equipment themselves.
Dr. al-Tamimi said Iraq had opened 47 new oxygen cylinder refilling plants and added 14,000 new beds and 63 new hospitals to help deal with the pandemic. The number of hospitals could not be immediately confirmed independently. Another public health official said the number was less than 25.
Iraq has reserved 1.5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, Dr. Al-Tamimi said and obtained ultra-cold freezers to store them for a vaccination campaign that is expected to begin in early March.
But dr. Lafta and other public health experts said they doubted enough Iraqis would agree to be vaccinated for the successful campaign.
“People here do not like vaccines,” he said. “We have struggled a lot over the past year to convince them to vaccinate their children for polio and measles.”
He said given the widespread poverty that removes many Iraqis from social distance, he was not surprised that they would choose to believe they were immune, rather than accept that they were in danger.
“It’s about an existence,” he said. ‘Because social distancing means that poor people do not go to work, they do not go on the streets to sell their goods. They feel if they are worried about the coronavirus, they will starve to death. ‘
Jaafar al-Waely and Falih Hassan reported.