Don't Slacken Off / British Experts Expose The Misunderstanding of fighting the epidemic "Lying flat" is very costly

Pictured: French healthcare workers treat COVID-19 patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). \ Reuters

【Ta Kung Pao News】Comprehensive "Guardian", "New York Times", "Financial Times" reported: World-renowned scholars, British Turing Award, British Medical Journal (BMJ) Special Contribution Award winner Pegger, and The British senior health media person MacKenzie and other experts said that the various misinterpretations of the new crown pneumonia epidemic have cost mankind millions of lives, calling for not to underestimate the severity of Omicron and strengthen the response. A number of experts pointed out that the Western "lying flat" anti-epidemic has great harm to society, and only vaccines and other epidemic prevention measures can be controlled by complementing each other, which is actually the "dynamic zeroing" strategy currently adopted by China.

Omicron is not a big flu

Voices say Omicron is a big flu. But Pegger pointed out that the so-called new crown virus has become a terroir, and the claim that we can coexist with it does not correspond to reality. Pegger said the term "terroir" is used in epidemiology to describe "a disease that does not spread out of control without public health measures", and the new crown virus clearly does not fit this feature. The New York Times interviewed more than 20 health experts on the 7th, who said that it is nonsense to regard the new crown as a "terroir disease".

The latest data released by the British National Bureau of Statistics (ONS) on the 8th showed that in the week ending April 2, 1 in 13 people in England was infected, unchanged from last week; the rates of Wales and Northern Ireland were 1/13 and 1/16, respectively, which increased. ONS also noted that 7.1% of seniors aged over 70 in the UK were infected within a week, reaching an all-time high in this age group.

Pegger said terroses imply predictable diseases, while the Omicron subtype strains BA.1 and BA.2, which are responsible for the current wave of confirmed cases around the world, have not been predicted in advance. England's chief medical officer, Whitty, has warned that new variant viruses are coming, but "we don't know when they'll come and what they'll look like." Pegger added that the coronavirus may become a terroir at some point, but even then, it doesn't necessarily mean mild, with diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria, for example, causing massive deaths around the world.

Pegger also refuted the idea that the virus tended to be milder. She said that large-scale transmission will promote the evolution of the virus, and the future variant of the virus may be more transmissible, and there may be immune escape. According to cdc data, as of April 7, the cumulative number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States exceeded 980,000, and just three months after the emergence of the Omicron variant virus, the number of Omicron deaths in the United States has surpassed the number of deaths during the Delta variant virus epidemic last fall.

Coexistence with the epidemic overwhelms health systems

The United Kingdom added 2,406 new covid-19 hospitalizations on the 4th, and the number of hospitalizations in the country has remained at a level of about 2,000 for nearly four weeks. Pegger pointed out that due to the surge in the number of patients and the infection of many health care workers, the UK's National Health Agency (NHS) is once again under heavy pressure, with the number of hospitalizations for the elderly over 65 years old being infected with the epidemic 15% higher than the peak in January this year. Pegger said: "It is wrong to think that the epidemic is over."

MacKenzie, a British science journalist who focuses on epidemiological research, pointed out that the new crown virus is not yet dead, the epidemic is far from over, "some Western governments use slogans such as 'coexistence with the virus' to please their voters, but people really need to understand the truth behind these slogans." At the beginning of this year, the United States, britain, France and Germany and other American and European countries have relaxed their epidemic prevention measures, and the United Kingdom has stopped doing free tests for the public from the 1st of this month, and MacKenzie criticized these measures as too crazy.

According to the latest data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), there are currently 638 XE variant cases and 38 XF variant cases in the UK. XE is a recombinant virus formed by the combination of the Omicron sub-variants BA.1 and BA.2, and XF is a recombinant of the Delta variant virus and Omicron BA.1. UKHSA said preliminary research suggests that recombinant viruses may be more contagious than earlier strains. The World Health Organization (WHO) previously said that XE transmission was 10% higher than BA.2.

British Prime Minister Johnson said on the 9th that it is not excluded that the city will be locked down again when a "more deadly variant" appears.

German Federal Health Minister Lauterbach said on the 6th that it was wrong to announce the measures to allow new crown infected people to voluntarily isolate from next month, and he stressed that the new crown is not a cold, and Germany will continue to use the policy of compulsory isolation of new crown infected people.

High vaccination rates are key

In the UK, around a third of people over the age of 12 have not been vaccinated with boosters. On 20 March, the NHS announced the launch of a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine, the second dose of booster, which allows nursing home residents, the elderly over 75 years of age and people with low immune function. Pegger pointed out that there is now a myth in the UK that the country has somehow "completed" the vaccination programme. Pegger said the two doses of vaccination for British adults were indeed almost complete, but most children under the age of 12 were still not vaccinated, and many adults did not receive boosters.

Pegger said that over time, the immunity provided by vaccines will decline, and new variants with immune escape responses like Omicron are likely to emerge in the future, which means that existing vaccines and antibodies in patients who have recovered from infection cannot ensure that people are not infected. Altman, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London, said vaccines with better effects and longer-lasting immunity must be developed.

U.S. infectious disease expert Fauci once again called on the public to be vaccinated on the 8th, Fauci said that when the autumn comes, every American must be vaccinated with a fourth dose of vaccine; in addition, in the future, it may be necessary to vaccinate the people every year or quarter, so as to provide lasting protection.

New York City recently abolished the mandatory wearing of masks, vaccinations and other regulations, but affected by Omicron BA.2, the city's epidemic situation quickly worsened. Health officials expect New York to return to the medium-risk ranks in the next two weeks. New York Brooklyn resident Drat said on the 7th that she believes the city should restore the provisions on wearing masks and vaccinations.

MacKenzie said that high vaccination rates are an important prerequisite for epidemic prevention. She noted that vaccination in some poor countries is a cause for concern because COVID-19 is a global crisis and if the virus continues to spread and mutate among unvaccinated populations, it will continue to make a comeback.

There are endless troubles after the long new crown

According to data released by the British National Bureau of Statistics on the 7th, as of March 5, at least 1.7 million people had symptoms that lasted more than 4 weeks after being diagnosed or suspected of being infected, accounting for 2.7% of the total population of the United Kingdom, reaching a record high. Some 1.1 million Britons said the after-effects of COVID-19 affected their daily lives, with more than half saying they were chronically tired, 34% saying they were short of breath, 28% had lost their sense of smell and 24% were sore muscles. British media pointed out that although there have been many studies, the cause and treatment of the new crown are still unclear.

The British "Mirror" reported that Tavare, a 27-year-old medical student at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, committed suicide with carbon monoxide in the car on the 6th because he could not bear the torture of the long new crown. In his suicide note, Tavare wrote, "I don't want to suffer anymore." Tavare contracted the epidemic in September 2020 and recovered from covid-19 symptoms, including palpitations, difficulty sleeping, extreme fatigue and cognitive decline caused by brain fog, and he lost his job.

Lavi, the son of the famous British scholar Martin Jacques, pointed out in a post on the 3rd that he personally experienced the pain caused by the sequelae of the new crown and criticized the British government for ignoring the long-term new crown patients. Mr. Ravi, 23, said he had been suffering from COVID-19 for a full year now, and his main symptom was intense fatigue, spending 16 hours a day in bed and unable to do any strenuous activities. Ravi added that more than 3 per cent of NHS healthcare workers in the UK are suffering from COVID-19, putting more pressure on an already overwhelmed healthcare system.

The latest study published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on the 6th shows that in the 30 days after the infection, the risk of pulmonary embolism increased by 33 times, the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) increased by 5 times, the risk of other bleeding diseases also increased by about 2 times, and after 6 months of infection, the associated risk still existed, and even those with mild diseases had a higher risk of thrombosis than ordinary people.