What year is ahead of us? Experts’ words will not please: It will not be good! We will fight with omikron for many months – Topky.sk

The omicron variant scares almost every country and many fear it for its extraordinary infectivity. After all, compared to the delta that has ravaged here since last summer, it has 32 mutations, the delta had “only” 9. In Israel, they have already started vaccinating the fourth dose of the vaccine for people over 60 and paramedics for omicron.

Archive VIDEO primary Kulkovský: Resign from vaccination? Such a person has nothing to do with a doctor! I’m afraid of what the omicron way

But what awaits us in Slovakia in 2022? The head of the internal department of the Považská Bystrica hospital Milan Kulkovský, epidemiologists Vladimír Krčméry and Martin Pavelka TV Awning commented on this topic. According to Kulkovsky, the pandemic taught us that we do not know how much we do not yet know. “Proof of this is the oncoming wave of the omicron, which threw into the trash and forgot everything we predicted about the delta variant. So I can only say what a pandemic might look like if there was no further Covid surprise,“ he pointed out that by the spring the company will probably be heavily overwhelmed, but, until then, we will also fight the omikron.

Another wave, another problem

In addition, according to Kulkovsky, we will also reach the vaccination ceiling at the level of 60 percent. “Which, by the way, is a sad number compared to the developed world. The summer will be quite calm,” stated. Krčméry, who was the first Slovak to receive a coronavirus vaccine last year, also agrees with his words. According to him, the omicron wave will end the week after Easter, ie at the end of April and summer will be calm. Subsequently, the next wave in October. “Until then, we expect vaccination coverage worldwide to exceed four billion people, or almost 60 percent of the population. As a result, mortality will be lower. “ means Krčméry.

Kulkovský adds that we will probably not have to reprofile such a large number of hospital beds in the next wave, and the school year 2022/2023 should be complete, without massive school closures. But everything can change a new variant that would come from a country with low vaccination. “As far as vaccination is concerned, additional doses will certainly be needed until the pandemic stabilizes and subsides,” Kulkovský explained.

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Epidemiologist Pavelka adds that the virus will continue to mutate and omicron is not the last option to cause problems. “We find that coronavirus vaccines do not have the same effect as other vaccines, which are sufficient every five or ten years. The fourth, fifth and sixth doses will probably come, “ said Pavelka, according to which it is important that we reach an endemic state. This is a condition where each of us has encountered the virus, whether in the form of a vaccine or an infection.

“Importantly, covid will no longer have an economic and social impact and will not seriously endanger healthcare. When a population has some level of immunity, it does not respond to a pathogen with a bad clinical profile, as when it first encounters it. We have already seen this in the delta variant in the United Kingdom. They have high vaccinations. More than 70 percent of the population is vaccinated, half are targeted and 95 percent of people over the age of 65 have a vaccine. The Delta variant did not produce many hospitalizations or deaths. The mortality of the virus was practically zero. On the contrary, we still have a large reservoir of people without immunity in Slovakia, ” Pavelka said. It remains questionable when we will get to this state. However, he pointed out that the omicron allegedly did not cause a difficult course. According to him, we will be worse off than in countries where vaccination coverage is high, but mass extinction will no longer be the number one topic. He concluded by saying that that the percentages of people we don’t vaccinate will have to catch up.