At a time when the world faces the new Omicron variant and when it is still dealing with the aggressive Delta strain, experts on the subject of covid – 19, agree that we are still a long way from seeing the end of the pandemic, so the only option to protect ourselves in To some extent, it is still the vaccine.
“We are far from the end,” said Dr. Tung Nguyen, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, during the videoconference “The Ghosts of Covid: Past, Present and Future ”, organized by Ethnic Media Services, taking stock of the almost two years of the covid pandemic – 19.
“We have had in the world 270 million cases with 5.3 million deaths. In the United States, more than 50 million infections with more than 800, said Dr. Nguyen.
Noted that more Americans have died in two years from the pandemic than in all wars in recent 120 years, including the First and Second World Wars l.
“The 15 millions who have survived the covid are not out of danger because we do not know the long-term consequences. ”
He indicated that the new wave is already here. “We have more than 150, 000 cases per day. It is an increase of 40% compared to the previous two weeks, and close to 68, 000, an increase of 21% compared to last December. ”
Dr. Nguyen said that they are projected 300, 000 cases for the next few months.
“Several times our healthcare system has been stretched to the breaking point, and is totally ill-equipped to deal with this. Many health care providers who are my colleagues are leaving the system and those who remain are depressed. ”
As a consequence, he said that people with other diseases do not receive and will not receive the care they need in a timely manner.
The risk of not being vaccinated
Dr. Nguyen specified that the risk of contracting covid for the unvaccinated is five times higher; and to die, is 13 more times.
“The good news is that 61 % of the population is fully vaccinated, although disparities persist. Latinos have improved their vaccination levels, but many of the unvaccinated are young. ”
He added that with the booster vaccine, there is a lower chance of contracting the Omicron variant.
And he considered that misinformation has been fatally harmful.
“In the midst of a changing process in which we are all learning, we need to combat the viral spread of covid – 19 with a rapid dissemination of good information to protect people and not confuse them. ”
A fight for life
Dr. Ben Neuman, chief of virology at the Global Health Research Complex at Texas A&M University, said that we are in a fight for our lives with the Omicron variant.
“This variant has been divided into at least four parts that are spreading in the community. The reports predict that it will be softer, but we cannot underestimate and it would be good to have additional protection. and the spread.
“The pills out there can fight the virus when it is already inside a person, but they do not provide any defensive measure”
He stressed that we have good vaccines that remain in the body for the rest of life, but this is something that we do not have for now against covid – 19 only because of the type of virus it is and the places where it grows.
“So this is a virus that we can eliminate with very high levels of vaccination in a row. And create a kind of barrier that way. ”
Covid – 19 and children
Pediatrician Roshni Mathew, co-director prevention and control of diseases of the Stanford Children’s Hospital, specified that the 23% of all infections in the United States have been in children under the age of 18 years.
“The prevalence of covid among children has mirrored the curve for adults, but the cases have recently increased compared to the principle of the pandemic. That could be explained by the fact that vaccines started with adults. ”
He noted that pediatric patients in hospitals and deaths of children from covid remain rare. Just to give an idea, approximately 1% of the 7 million pediatric covid cases have required hospitalizations, and around 660 children have died in the United States. ”
The pediatrician said that vaccine approval in May 2021 for children of 12 to 17 years, and then, more recently, in November 2021 for ages 5 to 11 years, offers the protection that adults have had for a while. This includes the booster shot for everyone over the age of 16 years.
“ Not vaccinating children is a risk that is not worth worth taking. It is always beneficial to get the vaccine even if any side effects may occur. We have vaccinated children against many diseases whose risk of death is much lower compared to covid ”.
The role of disinformation
Dr. Dali Fan, professor of Clinical Health Sciences at the University of California at Davis, and who is a volunteer for vaccination against covid, said that by not giving the vaccine 100% certain, doors have been opened for bad information .
“Many are lies because there are no chips inside the injections, nor do they change the genetic material, and the other are answers that we do not have. So if the vaccines are more or less effective against different variants, we don’t know. ”
He indicated that they basically work with fear in the process vaccination. “The fear of the disease and that is why they get vaccinated; and the fear of the vaccine itself. ”
It is said that they were not sufficiently proven, that the government manipulates the information and that they were created to benefit politicians and pharmaceutical companies.
“When you talk to people, arguing can be counterproductive. People believe what they want to believe. The government cannot force them to get vaccinated, but it can tell them that if they don’t get vaccinated, they cannot enter theaters, schools, congregations or do business with them. ”
He announced that between 100, 000 Y 700, 000 children have been infected with covid in California, and featured 6, 512 pediatric hospitalizations, with 30 deaths of minors.
“The vaccines are effective, and the side effects, such as fever, headache, sore arm and chills are mild and disappear after a few days, and even the most frightening myocarditis goes away in days. ”
Equity of vaccines
Peter Maybarduk, director of citizen public access at Medicines group, an organization that seeks to make medicines accessible to all, said he has There has been more death from covid, after the first vaccine, which shows us the immensity of inequity in vaccination.
“It is completely the inequity in vaccination in much of Sub-Saharan Africa intolerable. ”
He said that Kovacs, the global vaccine equity initiative backed by the World Health Organization is fighting to bring them 768 million doses by the end of the year.
“The reality is that poor countries tend to receive poor vaccines, which will have serious consequences as the pandemic deepens.”