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Professor Saulius Čaplinskas and the director of the Kaunas clinics, Renaldas Jurkevičius, spoke about it on the tv3.lt program “Dienos pjūvis”.
We have a new variety that has already been discovered in Lithuania and it is feared that it will spread. We already have a Briton who is said to be dominant. Is that African even more terrible, more contagious or is he causing more serious complications than before in Lithuania?
S. Čaplinskas: Well, let’s compare him to maybe a sprinter. If a sprinter who runs faster participates in the race, it is probably clear that he will win the race. This is exactly the variety out there now, both British and South Africans, who have those sprinter qualities, are spreading much faster. On the other hand, it is very important whether that sprinter will compete or not. It is up to all of our efforts here to prevent the spread of those varieties through preventative measures.
How should you prevent your eyes from spreading this strain? Do we have such an opportunity to do that?
R. Jurkevičius: We probably have and we do. There is probably no need to invent any bicycle here. Due to the South African variety, it is probably important to know that sick and vaccinated people who have felt freer for some time and may have been able to remove their mask when communicating with the vaccinated should now put those masks back on.
Mr. Chaplinski, speaking of which this breed is a sprinter. Maybe of course how much faster does it spread, are there some numbers that can be said about it?
S. Čaplinskas: Again, if we continue with the sprinters analogy, if we let it spread, it seems to spread one and a half times faster or similar. But it is very important that these super distributors do not emerge. If it happens that this sprinter will participate in a large number of competitions, as the experience of other countries still shows, in some cases 5 per cent, maximum 20 percent of infected people cause 80 percent of new infections. The so-called Pareto principle also applies here.
However, it is very important to carry out a genetic sequence study together with epidemiological follow-up. Don’t just research the research, especially if the results come in a few weeks and so on. That sprinter will already be in the competition. And here for now, let’s be honest, we are behind schedule. It is good that sequencing studies have begun, but it is bad that they still do not affect the epidemiological response in practice, because they do not participate in epidemiological monitoring and analysis.
Mr. Renalda, can it be said that this variety is causing more serious cases? Is there data available, of course, that those cases may be more severe or there may be more deaths? Can’t we say that?
R. Jurkevičius: We cannot say this because we do not have that actual data. This is probably the case, if we go back to that analogy, well, it seems to me that the British version is running faster in Europe than in South Africa, because in most countries it has spread and spread very fast, in Lithuania very fast . We see that the number of cases is also increasing in Marijampolė, Vilnius region, this sprinter will probably be faster, I suspect.
But it is precisely in those vaccinated and sick people where the British option has not been terrible, the South African option will be a little more dangerous. Here, people need to realize that I may not be such a fast runner, but what we hoped for with vaccination, that we will be able to live more freely, that we will be able to recover the economy, this option may cause us some problems. .
Can these sick people feel more reassured about the possibility that this African variety does not touch them?
S. Čaplinskas: I have to cry. No one can feel calmer than one, only with a certain reserve. In particular, it has already been shown that people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine had 67 percent fewer positive PCR results after being exposed to the virus after the vaccine. In other words, this percentage reduced the likelihood that they would transmit the virus to other people. But it is well known that, in fact, after 76 days, the antibody titer begins to drop dramatically, after illness, it appears to be exactly the same after vaccination.
The good thing is that memory cells remain. In other words, when a person is exposed to the virus again, their immune system can begin to fight the virus before the virus can make the person sick. Here, it is very important not to become infected again on the one hand, and on the other hand, if contact can no longer be avoided, so that as few viruses as possible are inhaled. Here again, the same guarantees: distance and the correct use of a medical mask.
Is this African strain more dangerous for certain groups of people, or is it equally dangerous for both the old and the young? Maybe there are some differences?
S. Čaplinskas: No such data is available so far, but the further, the better known are the various cofactors that contribute to the more severe or milder coronavirus disease. And as an example, I can already say that it has already been clearly observed that those vaccinated against pneumococcal infection, even if they get sick, have a statistically milder disease.
See the full conversation in the video at the beginning of the article.
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