Recently, there has been a small-scale rebound trend in China. According to the statistics of the Health Commission, at 0-24:00 on April 2, 2022, there were 438 new local confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia and 7,788 cases of asymptomatic infection, with an asymptomatic proportion of up to 94.7%; from 0:00 to 24:00 on April 1, 2022, there were 260 new local confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia and 6,051 cases of asymptomatic infection in Shanghai, with an asymptomatic proportion of up to 95.9%; at 0-24:00 on March 31, 2022, There were 358 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,144 cases of asymptomatic infection, with an asymptomatic proportion of 92.4%. The asymptomatic rate is more than 92%.
The increase in asymptomatic infected people is due to the characteristics of the Ombi Kerong mutant strain, resulting in many infected people being asymptomatic; second, the large-scale population has been vaccinated, and the proportion of asymptomatic infected people has increased due to increased immunity. In addition, the test is relatively timely, the age of the infected person is relatively small, and the infected person has certain protective measures and other reasons.
Zhang Hongtao, a former associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said in an interview with the People's Daily: "In the case of a relatively serious epidemic, asymptomatic infected people are at risk of infection as carriers of the virus and must be reasonably controlled. But if the outbreak eases, there is no need to panic about asymptomatic infected people. Humanity needs to defeat the virus, but it also needs to overcome its own blind fear. ”
Of course, we still have to be cautious about the virus, and when there is an epidemic, regardless of whether the toxicity of the virus is reduced, we still need to take protective measures.
Where is the inflection point?
After entering March, as the epidemic in Hong Kong became more and more serious, there was also a small-scale rebound trend in China. However, one surprising phenomenon in this wave of trends is that the proportion of asymptomatic infected people is particularly high.
An asymptomatic infected person is one in which the nucleic acid test results are positive but do not have the associated symptoms themselves, and imaging tests of the lungs do not see any cases of pneumonia.
In Shanghai, as of April 2, there were 438 new confirmed cases, 7,788 new cases of asymptomatic infection, and the proportion of asymptomatic infected people was as high as 94.7%.
The same trend is not only in Shanghai, but elsewhere.
Why is there an increase in asymptomatic infections?
For why the current phenomenon of asymptomatic infection continues to increase, Wu Jinglei, director of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, has such an interpretation: the number of asymptomatic infected people has increased, first, the characteristics of the Aomi Kerong mutation, resulting in many infected people showing asymptomatic. Second, large-scale population immunization, population immunity is enhanced, and the proportion of asymptomatic infected people will also rise.
Director Wu Jinglei said that there are two key points. In addition to these two reasons, there are actually still some
Obi Kejong mutation: From the perspective of the global epidemic, although the strain is more contagious, but the power has been reduced, the most obvious appearance is that the number of people who lack oxygen after infection has dropped greatly, so, although the global epidemic is more severe, the current Omil Kejong has not seen a serious supply of oxygen cylinders.
High vaccination rate: In the current epidemic situation in various places, the proportion of asymptomatic people diagnosed with infection in Shanghai is the highest, and the proportion of asymptomatic infected people accounts for more than 90%, which may be more likely to be vaccinated with Shanghai citizens.
Timely detection: Because of the strict policy of prevention and death, China is usually more timely in testing, and some patients are isolated after infection, or in the incubation period of the virus, blocking the spread of the virus from the source, and at the beginning will also report asymptomatic infected people, and then symptoms will appear. Therefore, the current epidemic has more asymptomatic infected people, which is still an uncertain thing, and it still needs to wait for the further development of the epidemic, or it depends on the probability of these asymptomatic infected people becoming symptomatic.
Infected people are relatively young: the new crown virus is an extremely age-discriminatory virus, which is very lethal to the elderly, and for younger people, the symptoms after infection are very mild. Omiqueron is no exception. In the epidemic in Jilin City, there are a large number of students of Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology College among the infected, because they are young, the symptoms will be mild, and if they have been vaccinated, the proportion of asymptomatic will naturally be very high.
There are certain precautions for those infected: although the presence of asymptomatic infected people has been noted since the beginning of the outbreak two years ago, the proportion was not so high at the beginning. The proportion of asymptomatic people gradually increased before the arrival of less toxic variants, which may be related to the epidemic prevention measures taken by the population.
How are asymptomatic infected people managed?
It is precisely because of the existence of asymptomatic infected people after the new crown virus infection, in order to strictly control the epidemic, Wuhan had to take extremely strict measures of "lockdown" in 2020. If we can check the infected person by measuring the body temperature, checking the symptoms, and cutting off the chain of infection in time, is it still necessary to lock down the city?
In order to strictly control the spread of the epidemic, Wuhan had to take extreme measures of "lockdown" in 2020. Although the mainland now reports differently on symptomatic and asymptomatic infected people, there is actually no difference between the two in terms of management measures.
Asymptomatic infected persons are required to conduct a live webcast through the China Disease Control and Prevention Information System within 2 hours and forward to designated medical institutions within 2 hours for centralized medical observation. If there is subsequent anti-yang, it needs to be revised to confirm the patient within 24 hours.
For symptomatic infected people, they need to be under centralized isolation for medical observation, which is also 14 days, and need to collect nucleic acids twice in a row, and the sampling time should be at least 24 hours apart, and both times the results are negative, so that the centralized isolation medical observation can be lifted. After the isolation is lifted, 14 days of home medical observation are required.
Because asymptomatic infected people are also contagious, according to the relevant requirements of the state, close contacts and sub-close contacts of asymptomatic infected people need to be investigated and controlled. In terms of epidemic prevention measures, not only will asymptomatic and symptomatic infected people not be treated differently, but their close contacts and sub-close contacts will not be treated differently, and strict control will be implemented.
Do you want to panic during the epidemic?
For the surge in asymptomatic infections everywhere, many people's first reaction is panic
Asymptomatic infected people, the focus of the word is infection, but because it is often referred to as "asymptomatic", many people will have an impression that the focus is "asymptomatic", in fact, although there are no symptoms, they are also infected.
In fact, everyone's panic is not necessary, especially in a big city like Shanghai, because the nucleic acid test is relatively adequate, even if there are asymptomatic infected people who have slipped through the net, there cannot be many walking virus carriers on the street.
Since the pandemic has been going on for two years, many people have become accustomed to living in this panic environment.
At the beginning of the epidemic, panic was high in mortality.
When the epidemic has begun to be prevented and controlled, the mortality rate has dropped, and the serious illness rate has begun to panic.
When the virus mutates, the virulence weakens, the severe disease decreases, and the panic "ordinary type" begins, at present, among the patients infected with the Ombi Kejong strain in China, the severe cases have only been reported in Tianjin, and have been alleviated since then. However, although most of the confirmed cases are mild, there is also a certain proportion of infections of the common type, which is also accompanied by symptoms of pneumonia.
When the vaccination rate increased, a good immune system was established in the body, and even the proportion of ordinary and mild patients decreased, and they began to panic about asymptomatic infected people.
In fact, this kind of panic is completely unnecessary.
At the beginning of the outbreak, because knowledge of the virus was very limited, "panic" could be a form of protection. But if, after more than two years of experience, we now have vaccines and drugs, and panic about the epidemic as we did two years ago, this seems to be the serious problem we need to panic.
The virus is changing, so are the vaccines we get and the drugs available. Humanity needs to defeat the virus, and it also needs to overcome its own fears.
Some observers have pointed out that after the vaccination rate has increased greatly, if 95% of the infected people are asymptomatic, then the highly contagious virus has actually evolved into an ideal "vaccine" that can soon be strengthened against almost all people.
We don't need to be blindly afraid of the virus, but we still need to be cautious about the virus, in the event of an epidemic, no matter how the virus virulence is reduced, as long as it does not affect normal life, we should still wear masks and pay attention to social distancing.
Source: Physician's Daily synthesized from Shanghai Health Commission, People's Daily, Xinhua Net, Beijing Evening News
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