The 13 million inhabitants of the chinese city of xi’an they started on Thursday a strict confinement due to an outbreak of Covid-19 at the gates of Beijing-2022, while various parts of the world observe a rapid increase in cases due to the Omicron variant, which has led to new restrictions in Europe.
Although it barely registers a few dozen cases per day, far from the 100,000 of United Kingdom o 60,000 en Spain, China is committed to a virus eradication strategy, especially after a month and a half of the Winter Olympic Games in its capital.
After the appearance of a hundred cases in Xi’an, known for hosting the famous “Terracotta Warriors”, its 13 million inhabitants must stay home from Thursday at midnight “except for imperative reasons.”
Only one person per household is allowed to go out to shop every other day and all “non-essential” businesses had to close.
This cautious approach has allowed the Asian giant, where the virus was first detected two years ago, to maintain the number of sick people from Covid-19 in just over 100,000.
The Beijing Olympics They will be developed with the most restrictive measures for a sporting event since the beginning of the pandemic, since there will be no international spectators and all participants will have to remain in a health “bubble” that will include daily anti-covid tests.
“Effective tool”
In United Kingdom surpassed that number in a single day, with a record 106,000 infections on Wednesday. Spain also beat a maximum of daily infections, with more than 60,000 cases, almost half due to the Omicron variant.
Faced with this situation, the Spanish government, which has one of the most widely vaccinated populations in Europe, announced on Wednesday the reestablishment of the mandatory use of the mask outdoors that had been lifted six months ago.
“The mask has proven in recent months to be an effective tool in prevention,” said the president of the government. Pedro Sanchez, noting that it is a “temporary” measure that will be withdrawn “as soon as possible.”
The director of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Europe, Dr. Hans Kluge, stated that “Ómicron is becoming, or has already become, dominant in several countries, including Denmark, Portugal and the United Kingdom, where the figures are doubling every day and a half to three days , with unprecedented transmission rates “.
With the multiplication of cases, governments recover restrictions and try to accelerate the inoculation of booster doses and the immunization of children between 5 and 11 years old.
Less serious but more infectious
The Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, cautioned against the illusion that booster doses would suffice to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic.
“They could even prolong the pandemic rather than end it, by diverting available doses to countries with high vaccination rates, thus giving the virus a better chance to spread and mutate,” he added.
The highly infectious character of this new variant may neutralize its apparent lower severity, first observed in South Africa and now reinforced by two British studies carried out in Scotland e England.
These studies show that those infected with Omicron are significantly less likely to end up hospitalized than those infected with delta.
The Scottish study indicates that the risk of hospitalization with Omicron is reduced by two-thirds. English, meanwhile, points to a 40-45% reduction in hospitalizations of one night or more.
“While the reduction in the risk of hospitalization with Omicron is reassuring, the risk of infection remains extremely high,” said Azra Ghani of the Imperial College London, co-author of the English study.
And it is that despite its apparent less seriousness, the rapid spread can increase the base of infected people with what, in absolute numbers, hospitalizations and deaths with Ómicron can be equal to or worse than with delta.
The pharmaceutical laboratory AstraZeneca stated this Thursday that a third dose of his Covid-19 vaccine it “significantly” increases the level of antibodies against the omicron variant, citing a clinical study.
100 million cases in America
The new variant has already been detected in 18 countries and American territories, the Pan American Health Organization by announcing that that continent had exceeded 100 million cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.
The latest data from this organization point to a decrease in infections in Central and South America, but instead there was an increase in the Caribbean.
In the United States, where Ómicron represents 73% of new infections, the gala of the Oscar honoraria scheduled for January was postponed, although the grand awards ceremony for March 27 remains for now.
That country’s drug regulator approved on Wednesday the pill against Covid-19 from Pfizer which, according to this laboratory, reduces the risk of hospitalizations and deaths among people at risk by 88 percent.
The world has registered 5 million 376.527 million deaths and more than 276 million cases of Covid-19 since the end of 2019, according to a balance established by AFP from official sources this Thursday.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx