Although attention has been drawn to the alarming new variant of SARS-CoV-2, there has been good news: despite the evolution of a number of strains that appear to be spreading more easily, the total number of COVID-19 cases has dropped, both in the United States and worldwide. There are a number of countries that are still seeing an increase in infections, but a combination of reduced spread after holidays and increased social interventions is getting the congestion seen in January under control.
It is said that there are worrying signs that a number of states at least in the United States are making the same mistakes that ensured that the virus never really disappeared after the first increase in cases. And the proliferation of many new variants is leading to the need to prevent complacency.
Depart
The general decline in affairs appeared at a recent press conference of the World Health Organization. “For the third week in a row, the number of new cases of COVID-19 worldwide has decreased,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO. “There are still many countries with an increasing number of cases, but worldwide this is encouraging news.”
The United States was part of the trend. In the states, business peaked in mid-January and has been declining ever since. At the end of January, levels dropped in early November to where they were back. (Mortality remains high due to the significant delay between diagnosis and mortality rate, but is expected to start declining soon.) Even with the decline, however, the daily incidence is still much more than three times more than it was during the first peak of the pandemic in April and about double the levels seen in the U.S. summer boom.
The decline seems to be happening in the US before some of the more contagious coronavirus variants become widespread. But there is some reason for optimism, because even countries where these variants are common, such as the UK, see a significant decrease in cases. This suggests that at least some of the increase in cases was driven by socialization that took place during the winter holidays, many of which health experts feared would lead to increased cases.
But dr. Tedros of the WHO also suggested that social constraints imposed in response to increasing cases also played a role. “It shows that this virus can be controlled, even with the new variants in circulation,” he said. “And it shows that, if we continue with the same proven public health measures, we can prevent infections and save lives.”
Who needs health measures?
However, Tedros also issued a warning, saying: ‘We have been here before. In recent years, there have been moments in almost every country when things have taken a turn for the worse, and governments have opened up too quickly and individuals have let their hats down. , just for the virus to come back. ‘This caution is supported by multiple studies that have indicated that states and countries that have increased their restrictions too early have had persistent infections and have returned earlier to widespread infections.
This is a basic outcome of viral spread. The decrease in cases is due to social constraints, either compulsory or voluntary, which reduces the rate at which each infected individual transmits the virus to others. The ultimate goal of these restrictions is to reduce the total number of cases so that there are very few infections when people resume everyday activities, enabling contact detection and isolation to limit the spread of the virus. Stop the social restrictions too soon, and many more people will be infected, which makes contact detection ineffective and start new infections at a very high level.
This is what apparently happened in the United States, which never saw clear waves of infection, but instead saw a number of peaks emerge from the background of high levels of viral spread.
Unfortunately, the US seems to be committed to revisiting its past mistakes. At a time when infections are even higher than any point before November, a number of states have responded to the decline in new cases with plans to lift restrictions. Although California has been somewhat cautious and only lifted a stay-at-home order after ICU capacity rose last week, areas in the state are already allowing restaurants to reopen.
New York follows a similar approach: restrictions have been lifted in much of the state and indoor dining will resume in less than two weeks. The Empire State is also already planning to allow weddings of up to 150 people in March. This action comes when The New York Times reported that many important health officials stopped during the pandemic due to conflict with the Government of New York, Andrew Cuomo. In the article, Cuomo is quoted as saying that he does not trust his own experts.
About the new variants …
It is also worrying to alleviate these restrictions early on, as it is clear that the three most varying varieties are now spreading in the United States, although they are not yet widespread. These variants can offset the benefits of social restraints or increase the spread of the virus in their absence.
Let’s look at the Brazilian city of Manaus to understand the problems that the combination of new SARS-CoV-2 variants and end restrictions could create. An initial wave of infections hit hard in May, and blood donation studies indicated that up to 75 percent of the population was infected by October. One draft manuscript even suggested that the low rate of infection that followed this wave was an indication that the region would have achieved herd immunity. As infections declined at the end of July, social restrictions were removed. After months in which infections remained low, reception venues reopened in December.
And now the pandemic is back in Manaus, as described by a recent newspaper in The Lancet. Local authorities tried to impose social restrictions in response to the upswing in new business, but they withdrew in response to strong public resistance. With the lifting of the limits, the city hit a serious second wave of infections.
In the new paper, some researchers studying Manaus offer four possible reasons. One is simply that previous studies have overestimated the number of people exposed in the first wave. A second option is that we see the impact of faded immunity. Although a number of cases of re-infection have been reported, the number of confirmed second cases remains low, and it is not clear if this is due to limited tests.
Wear a mask
The possibility is related to the possibility that some of the strains now circulating in Manaus picked up enough mutations to avoid the immune response caused by the first wave of infection. Eventually, it is possible that some of these strains are simply more contagious and fare better to reach the population that went through the first wave without an infection. Clearly, more than one of these four factors may play a role during the recent increase in infections.
Manaus is not typical of the experiences of other cities in Brazil, so it is not an indication that the US expects to see an equal increase in infections as these and other tribes become more common here. But the possibility can also not be ruled out, and therefore the restriction of the spread of infections through mask use and social restrictions will remain critical, even if the matter will fade after the holidays.