— Against the backdrop of a huge incidence of coronavirus, various European countries began to lift restrictive measures. What does this mean? And how right is that?
—Because of the spread of the omicron, the incidence measured in daily positive PCR tests has indeed risen sharply, even in countries where vaccination rates are very high. But at the same time, the percentage of people admitted to hospitals, and, more importantly, the percentage of people dying from the disease, fell sharply compared to last year's delta level. And this is exactly what allows people to say that the omicron is weaker and more beneficent than the delta. Perhaps it is not. Perhaps the very fact that most people are vaccinated or have been ill has led to the fact that the virus does not manifest itself in the way it could.
Be that as it may, from the point of view of the burden on the medical system in many countries, the situation is stable, and most infected people carry the disease easily or even on their feet.
Since the number of infected people is gigantic, lifting restrictions in such conditions is a smart move, especially in terms of an economy that is not in the best shape everywhere.
But the risk of natural lockdowns in cases where many people get sick and can't show up for work, stays.
Konstantin Severinov. Photo: Vlad Dokshin/Novaya Gazeta
—Has the virus really gotten better? Or is it because the vast majority of people in these countries have been vaccinated?
Whether we like it or not, humanity has changed. At the end of 2019 and most of 2020, in the immunological sense, we were all “naive”. Our immune systems never encountered COVID-19, and so the virus could do pretty much whatever it wanted to do to us. And then the success of the virus, which officially infected several hundred million people, and the fact that about 10 billion doses of vaccines were used in the world, led to the fact that a lot of people received some immunity to it: their immune systems “remembered” the virus.
It is difficult to accurately estimate the number of those who have been ill, for which official data is obviously underestimated, and those who have been vaccinated, among whom there are those who received one, two, three or more doses of vaccines, it is difficult. But about half of the world's population, and maybe more, have ceased to be immunologically «naive» in relation to the coronavirus. The fact that a significant part of the population already has resistance prevents at least a severe course of the disease.
— That is, it is not the virus that has weakened, but the immunity of mankind has developed?
— From general considerations, it is clear that it is better to have at least some kind of immunity that protects against a severe course of the disease than to have no protection at all. The virus has evolved, changed as a result of a change in the external environment in relation to it and has become more adapted to new conditions.
These changes, in particular, reduce the effectiveness of interaction with antibodies developed in response to past diseases or existing vaccines. This allows the virus to infect those who were previously ill or vaccinated, makes the new version of the virus more adaptable and successful, because there are many who have been ill and vaccinated, and early versions of the virus infected them much less effectively. The very places of the coronavirus that turned out to be changed are responsible for the recognition of human lung cells. Therefore, the new variant interacts with our cells in a slightly different way than the earlier variants, as experiments in laboratories show. In particular, therefore, it seems to affect the upper respiratory tract more effectively.
This makes it more contagious, which is good for the virus, but it also reduces the frequency with which it causes pneumonia, which is good for us.
— Why then Is Russia still ahead of other countries in terms of mortality? Or is it not so?
— Conclusions could be drawn if one could believe the statistics. The official mortality statistics given by government agencies is 340,000 people for the entire duration of the pandemic. If you look at the excess mortality in Russia during this time, then it is more than a million. Let's compromise and accept that our population has decreased by 600 thousand due to covid. 145 million people live in the country. If 600 thousand of them died from covid, is that a lot or a little?