Lessons for Poland from Great Britain. The virologist criticizes the lifting of restrictions

The wave of infections caused by Omikron in Poland continues. Meanwhile, Great Britain has lifted most of the restrictions, despite the fact that the daily number of cases exceeds 80. Should we compare ourselves with this country and expect that the course of the fifth wave will be similar in our country? About how we differ from the British, why attempts to achieve population immunity are risky, when the pandemic may end and whether we are at risk of another, says Dr. Emilia C. Skirmuntt, a virologist at the University of Oxford, in an interview with Medonet.

1. Dr Skirmuntt believes that the British government has taken the decision to lift the restrictions too hastily. – You have to wait some time until the number of cases starts to increase again and to avoid as many deaths as possible
2. In her opinion, Poland has an advantage over Great Britain when it comes to vaccinating children – only 12-year-olds are vaccinated in the UK
3. The expert also referred to the opinions that the Omicron wave will end the pandemic: – I have tried several times to predict how the pandemic will turn out and in many cases I was wrong, as indeed many of my colleagues. We have more perfect historians in the world than prophets
4. The virologist also indicates which pathogens found in nature are capable of causing another pandemic
5. More information can be found on the Onet homepage

Paulina Wójtowicz, MedTvoiLokony: The fifth wave in Poland continues, the peak of infections is still ahead of us, it is still unknown how large the number of infections will translate into the statistics of hospitalization and deaths. Meanwhile, in Great Britain, where you work, there were more than 100 thousand. cases a day, now there are over 80 thousand. Are the circumstances really conducive to heralding a return to normality?

Dr. Emilia C. Skirmunt: Unfortunately, what the government is doing has been criticized by almost all experts. That the restrictions are lifted is more a political decision, not a decision based on scientific data. The number of cases is actually declining, but not everywhere. There are fewer infections in London, but in the north of the country, for example, it does not look so rosy anymore. Unfortunately, we do not know what the epidemic situation looks like, because the British are not testing themselves as eagerly as before. Until now it was recommended to test twice a week – rapid antigen tests were widely available – and now there is no such pressure. Soon there will also be no obligation to test people arriving in the UK. So it is difficult to say how many infections are real.

Foot. worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk

Record-breaking 217 thousand early January is a lot of cases. Could there be more?

Up to four to five times more than officially shown in the statistics at the peak of the Omicron wave.

So how is the scale of infection measured?

We look at the percentage of positive tests for all the swabs taken. In Great Britain, during the Omicron wave, there were 26 percent. positive tests. In order for us to speak of pandemic control, this percentage must be below 5%.

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Poland is eager to compare itself to Great Britain. There are voices that the course of the fifth wave may be similar in our country, despite the fact that the rate of vaccination of the society is radically different. Can we really repeat the British scenario?

Comparing countries does not make sense, because everyone has their own specifics, ranging from demographic issues, such as different average age of the population or different population density, to tourism, i.e. how people move around the country. All this translates into the rate at which the virus spreads. Poland and Great Britain differ radically in these areas. In addition, there is the issue of vaccination that you mentioned. The British are much better vaccinated than the Poles. More than 72 percent were vaccinated with two doses. society, the third was adopted by more than half of the population. In Poland, this indicator is much lower [57,8%. – ed.].

And this despite the fact that we can vaccinate children.

Exactly. In the UK, children under the age of 12 are not vaccinated, which is again a decision not supported by most experts. And now these kids have returned to school and we are seeing a tremendous increase in the number of cases there. Poland has a big advantage over Great Britain here.

1. See also: More and more hospitalizations of children with COVID-19. Why is this happening?

Another advantage seems to be the fact that in the course of the fifth wave we are a bit “behind” the British and other European nations. We have a chance to learn from mistakes made by others. What can we learn?

In order not to remove the restrictions when the number of infections is still high, even if it is slowly starting to decline. You have to wait some time before the number of cases starts to increase again and to avoid as many deaths as possible. Because maybe in the statistics it does not look scary that, for example, 60 or 100 people have died, but if this is our uncle, aunt, grandmother, mother, then suddenly this number changes meaning and soothing voices seem out of place. These are all people whom we expose by removing the restrictions, especially if they are sick or elderly.

Some believe that only gaining herd immunity can save us. Many people openly say that they prefer to get sick with this coronavirus and have peace of mind. Does such a strategy make sense?

I would be careful. An omicron will, of course, be mild in many cases, but this will not always be the case. People with Omikron also end up in hospitals and also die. In addition, we still do not know what the long-term effects of the infection are. Saying: we will get vaccinated and then we will get sick and it will be ok does not make sense, because getting sick, however, always carries a risk. There is still no good research on how long immunity lasts after an outbreak. We know that immunization will give us better protection than disease, because the vaccine is designed to elicit the strongest, clearest immune response possible. Infection, infection, does not always give such a strong reaction, because the virus uses various mechanisms to hide from our immune system.

1. Also read: Prof. Fal: Don’t get too attached to the concept of herd immunity in the context of the coronavirus

“Taking booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine every four months on a regular basis can ultimately weaken the immune response and be tiring for people,” the European Medicines Agency (EMA) assessed. Could vaccination against COVID-19 really weaken our immunity?

There is a mechanism: the exhaustion of immune memory. To put it simply: our T cells stop recognizing the antigen / pathogen because they have gotten used to it. It can happen, but we would have to take this vaccine very often, e.g. every few months, but for COVID-19 vaccines, to my knowledge, no one has done such studies, and so far no such mechanism has been observed. It is worth adding that this mechanism does not always occur. Examples include pediatric vaccinations, which are carried out every few months in the first and second year of a child’s life, or vaccinations against rabies, which are administered four times with an interval of several months. They are highly effective and do not weaken immunity.

1. What gives you super resistance to COVID-19? Two ways. Scientists studied which one was more effective

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In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, no one has tested how it would work if taking them every two months, but no one recommends getting vaccinated that often. Even if we had to do it once a year, as with the flu vaccine, and I don’t see why we should get the vaccine more often, especially when the pandemic has passed and the infection rate has dropped significantly, it will not negatively affect immune memory.

Israel, which administered the fourth dose shortly after the third, did not see any major changes between the population vaccinated with the four doses and the one taking the three doses, indicating that the fourth dose does not impair our immunity, but in its present form does not alter our protection very much compared to three-dose mode So at this point there is no reason to think that we will need more doses in a year than what we currently have.

1. Can short intervals between doses of the vaccine reduce immunity?

We are able to determine how long the fifth wave of coronavirus will last in Poland?

This is a bit of reading tea leaves, but of course you can do modeling. It will definitely be short, because the Omikron variant infects faster and more people at the same time. The wave will also fall faster. It won’t be a few months, but rather a few weeks. What we are seeing in other countries that we have not seen before is that the earlier waves rose for a while and the subsequent decline was much more abrupt than the increase. This one grows fast, but it declines quite slowly.

1. Also read: The fifth wave grows stronger. What awaits us until February 21? New forecast for Poland

While we are at the end, can the increasingly frequent voices that the pandemic will end soon be taken seriously?

The pandemic is sure to end because pandemics always end. But whether it will happen this year is really hard to say. There is a chance, of course. This virus can become seasonal and become a flu-like problem. We will see an increase in infections every year, but there will be no need for the lockdowns or restrictions we see today. Many experts say SARS-CoV-2 will become endemic. I believe that this word in relation to the coronavirus is overused at the moment and I try not to use it. When people hear “endemic” they think the danger is over, and it is not.

1. What awaits us after Omikron? Scientists about possible “surprises”

Influenza is endemic and people continue to get sick and die, and suffer from complications for yearsbecause the flu virus can damage various organs, so you have to take medication for the rest of your life. COVID-19 may stay with us in a similar capacity. An endemic virus is not one that we just live with and we may not care about it. Endemic viruses are under constant surveillance and countless scientists around the world are constantly involved in monitoring, researching and protecting them against them. It’s not that when we label a virus “endemic” we can forget about it. Maybe if we mean society in general, then yes, but not if we are talking about virologists, epidemiologists or the rest of scientists and people involved in the topic of public health.

So at this point we can only guess. I have tried several times to predict how the pandemic would turn out and in many cases I was wrong, as indeed many of my colleagues. We have more perfect historians in the world than prophets. It’s easier to look back than to the future. Over time, it will be easier, we will learn more about this virus, its dynamics of infection, and thus the modeling will be better, more accurate. This was the case with influenza, which we have monitored since 1996, and yet we sometimes still cannot predict what the seasonal variation will look like in a given year. And yet in the case of SARS-CoV-2, we only have two years of data.

I have to ask about BA.2., The sub-variant of Omikron, which is present in about 60 countries around the world. Many mutations have also been detected in his genetic material, most of them located in the S protein of the virus. Should we be afraid of him?

I find it pointless to observe variants and hysterical media reactions about them. This is important for scientists to observe how the pathogen spreads. Maybe for health protection, so that its employees know that they can expect a higher wave or more hospitalizations. But so socially it doesn’t matter at all. This virus is transmitted in the same way, it causes similar symptoms, and whether someone goes to the hospital depends on many factors, certainly not what variant infected them.

The new sub-variant is practically no different from the Omicron, it may be a bit more contagious, but that doesn’t really make any difference.because this variant is very contagious in general. The pressure to look for new variants and describe them in the media is a dead end.

1. More information about the Omikron sub-option. BA.2 is dangerous to us? The scientists answer

Because in nature there are many as dangerous as SARS-CoV-2 viruses? Are they capable of triggering another pandemic?

Tak. Another strain of flu could definitely cause a pandemic. Flu is divided into seasonal flu, which we see every year, and pandemic flu, which happens every few to several years. Why could the flu be our next problem? Because it mutates very quickly, faster than coronaviruses, and can be very deadly at times.

Another coronavirus – this is also a possibility. There are many of them, many are found in animals. We observe coronavirus pandemics regularly. Previously, every several dozen or even several hundred years, but now more and more often due to the growth of the population, destruction of the natural environment, which also leads to much greater contact with wild animals. Now we are much more exposed to these pathogens, so the risk of a pandemic is also greater.

1. Also read: What awaits us after Omicron? Scientists about possible “surprises”

When it comes to viruses that are more exotic to us Europeans, they are very dangerous Nipah viruswhich causes regular epidemics in tropical countries. It is very lethal, it is characterized by 60-70 percent. mortality, almost like Ebola. And it is also a virus that can spread to the human population from tropical bats. We see it more and more often precisely through the destruction of forests, where bats live and have to move closer to buildings, where they come into contact with people and farm animals. This pathogen is under observation, but fortunately, until it begins to spread more efficiently in the human population, from person to person, we can sleep well. Remember, however, that viruses mutate, so the threat is always there.

Can we protect ourselves from these viruses by learning from the mistakes of the COVID-19 pandemic?

I would very much like us to learn a lesson, but unfortunately we like to forget about unpleasant things. The 2009 and 2010 swine flu pandemic showed this. At that time, people also adhered to hand washing and vaccinated themselves for a long time, but after six months from the announcement of the end of the pandemic, everyone forgot about it. This pandemic is much more serious than the previous one, but I fear the scenario will repeat itself.

1. Also read: Will we be facing another pandemic?

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