Covid, Omicron 5 how does it affect? What Andreoni, Bassetti, Lopalco say

The Covid variant Omicron BA.5 or Omicron 5 as a flu? Experts are divided on this hypothesis. From Bassetti to Vaia passing through Lopalco, here’s what they think. Read also Bassetti On the hypothesis that the Omicron BA.5 or Omicron 5 variant could be like a flu, “basically I think it is, in some cases even less. We have forms of reinforced cold, runny nose and sore throat. In 3-4 days maximum in a vaccine this form resolves “. So at Adnkronos Salute Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa, commenting on what was stated by the infectious disease specialist Giovanni Di Perri: “The last variant almost never goes down into the lungs, it comes from Portugal where it is passing without damages “. According to Bassetti, “we are dealing with a flu-like form, therefore very contagious, but if we look at the hospitalization data in the countries where BA.5 has already passed, they did not get up, very few people were hospitalized”. “We have to get used to to see situations like the one we are experiencing today, that is the increase in infections, we will always have them – the specialist points out – After that, it is useful to indicate every day in Italy who is positive for a tampon? No. We only create insecurity. weapons to deal with this infection and we must look forward “. Bassetti then goes back to what his colleague Di Perri highlighted: “The two of us work in the ward and we have to deal with Covid every day”. “The virus is circulating and thinking about October we cannot put people in check today just to force them to get vaccinated. – highlights the infectious disease specialist – The virus does not bite and is a form very similar to the flu, the vaccines made cover us from the serious forms of the disease. Certain catastrophic attitudes are not good “. Andreoni “Clinically it is already a flu, perhaps with a fever, but certainly not seasonal, since it has been circulating in a violent manner for 9 months, also considering the deaths. So we can speak of ‘flu’, but with due caution, Sars -CoV-2 didn’t go to the attic and the Omicron BA.5 sub-variant shows us that some element of concern remains. We can’t think it’s all over. ” So at Adnkronos Salute Massimo Andreoni, head of infectious disease at the Tor Vergata Polyclinic in Rome and scientific director of the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (Simit). “We can console ourselves with a clinical impact of the disease that today is not terrible, but it depends from the choice that you want to make from a political point of view – the specialist underlines – We are facing a virus that has not yet found its stabilization, continues to change, so we still have to be very careful “. Lopalco “Covid-19 is Covid-19 and flu is flu. They are not the same. The disease burden and impact on health facilities caused by the Omicron wave last winter was greater than that caused by a flu season. we do not yet know the burden due to Long Covid. So it is better not to confuse the two pathologies “. Epidemiologist Pier Luigi Lopalco, professor of Hygiene at the University of Salento, explains this to Adnkronos Health. Another element that the expert underlines is the continuing importance of containment measures: “Influenza is a pathology important that we have finally kept under control thanks to greater vaccination coverage and the widespread use of masks. Why should we give up these control measures? “, asks Lopalco. Sars-CoV-2 positive people, the epidemiologist clarifies: “Even with the flu you don’t go to work. There is home isolation, even if not formalized. Surely with Omicron the rules for the isolation of asymptomatic positives will go magazines – he admits – but woe to think that a virus carrier can freely go around spreading it. Not good for the flu, even less for Covid-19 “. Vaia “Today as yesterday, the” du Sars-CoV-2 “variants should not scare us. They remain ‘special supervised’ and must be studied, as we are continuing to do. So no alarmism, but the tools, vaccines and therapies must be updated. And then we need system interventions on places of sociality, for an autumn that does not catch us unprepared “. Francesco Vaia, director general of the Inmi Spallanzani of Rome, writes this on Facebook, commenting on a press release from the Institute on what we currently know about the Omicron sub-variants, in particular about BA.5. Minelli Since the advent of Omicron “we continue to discuss a possible ‘cold’ virus, that is a virus which, due to its progressive adaptation to humans, would have generated gradually less virulent variants. On the purely immunological side, I will limit myself to saying that the difficulties that the coronavirus is encountering and will increasingly encounter are linked to an extraordinary synergy of defensive dynamics produced by vaccination and infections of vaccinated and unvaccinated people. This is why proceeding with the completion of vaccination programs becomes a strategic element for a definitive control of the pandemic “. The immunologist Mauro Minelli, head of the Foundation for personalized medicine for Southern Italy, explains this to Adnkronos Health. phase in which the Sars-CoV-2, with all its next possible performances, will encounter obstacles that are increasingly difficult for him to overcome – predicts the immunologist – if not in terms of diffusivity, certainly in terms of danger and, therefore, of lethality “. What Di Perri said Covid is back but now it’s like a flu. “It is unlikely that the virus will change by regaining a greater ability to harm. It does not suit him, even for him it is better to remain an additional. It is good news because we do not have to worry too much, not even about the new variants”, the last of which is widespread starting from Portugal. Giovanni Di Perri, director of the infectious diseases department of the Amedeo di Savoia hospital in Turin, said in a long interview on ‘Libero’. “I currently have nine patients”, he says. “I have all done lung CT scan because if there is even a suspicion, you have to act quickly”. Only one of the patients, however, has a coronavirus infection. “One in nine. It is not an alarming number”, he says, stressing that the increase in the number of infections does not worry as in the past. “Take Portugal: it was the first country to see an increase in cases with Omicron sub-variants and it’s starting to go down.” The parameters on which the data of the epidemic we see in these days are based have been calibrated on Delta. Now “Omicron and its sub-variants, including the current Ba 4 or 5, have a lesser ability to cause lung infections.” It is no coincidence that “from Christmas to today we have had three times the cases we have recorded before. However, the hospitals have not gone upside down and there has not been an exponential increase in deaths. All in a moment in which there have been also relaxed the anti-contagion measures “. People who end up in intensive care” 90% are elderly subjects or with serious pre-existing problems. Heart failure, obesity, chronic diseases. The coronavirus is becoming the equivalent of the flu, and it’s a good thing. The virus has mutated so much with the aim of increasing its contagiousness that it has lost on the pathogenic side. In simple terms, it no longer hurts “, this also thanks to vaccines that” have reduced the risk, but over time the Sars-Cov-2 has been less capable of harming us. With Omicron we have recorded at least twelve million infections. They are the official ones, the real number is presumably much higher. This ‘sheet’, pass me the term, produced an imm spontaneous unit which is better than the vaccine one because it is fresher and concerns the variants that are circulating now “.