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Covid USA: Harvard professor predicts Omicron variant will have ‘mild’ effect

The “hidden” variant of Omicron has made headlines around the world in recent weeks, as the highly contagious strain, the most contagious of the pandemic, many fear a new wave of Covid may be just around the corner. Experts reassure Americans that things may not be as bad as some think.

Dr. Jacob Lemieux, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said Tuesday that he does not believe the US will experience a large wave of Covid-19 cases, similar to what Hong Kong and some European countries have experienced in recent weeks. .

Instead, he expects cases to increase slightly, but still remain at the extremely low overall level the country is currently experiencing.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) is issuing serious overseas warnings about the impact the stealth variant could have, especially as masking and removal orders related to the pandemic have been lifted. The organization reported on Tuesday that the number of infections in the world rose 7% in the past week.

BA.2, the official name for the stealth variant, is an Omicron strain that has appeared in many parts of the world but has not made much impact in the United States.

However, it failed to catch on in the United States, as it did in most of Europe.

Dr.  Jacob Lemieux (pictured), a medical instructor at Harvard Medical School, does not believe the United States will have a BA.2-led Covid wave earlier this month comparable to many other countries in the world.

Dr. Jacob Lemieux (pictured), a medical instructor at Harvard Medical School, does not believe the United States will have a BA.2-led Covid wave earlier this month comparable to many other countries in the world.

According to the latest data released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), BA.2 represents 35% of active Covid cases in the United States, where BA.1 is still dominant.

However, the share of BA.2 Covid infections in America is increasing, with the variant accounting for only 23% of cases in the previous week.

“We see almost nothing about the transition to BA.2 prevalence,” Lemieux told The Harvard Gazette.

Despite what has happened in other parts of the world, Covid cases have remained stable.

There are an average of 31,309 cases per day in the United States, corresponding to last week. This is the lowest weekly average of cases since July 2021, just before the Delta variant spike.

America also suffers 1,032 deaths per day from the virus, a 13% drop over the past seven days. Due to the milder nature of the Omicron variant and the successful launch of the vaccine in the country, deaths from the virus have dropped significantly in recent months – about 90 percent of adults receiving at least one injection.

Internationally, WHO reported more than 12 million cases of Covid-19 worldwide last week, a seven percent increase from the previous week.

However, the death toll fell 23% to just under 33,000, another sign of the virus’s declining death toll.

The increase in cases has been concentrated entirely in the Western Pacific, where the daily number of infections increased by 23% last week. In Europe, infections stabilized after a slight 2% increase last week.

Some countries that had been declining in cases for months, such as the UK, France and Denmark, saw the number of infections suddenly spike last week. In these countries, cases seem to have stabilized and growth seems to have stopped.

Harvard experts hope that the US didn’t suffer too much from BA.2, which means it probably never will.

They believe it will have affected national and local case data by now, as the variant is currently responsible for more than a third of national cases.

“There’s really no evidence in the region of an increase in cases or deaths that matches this increase in BA.2 infections that we’re seeing,” said Bronwyn MacInnis, director of genomic pathogen surveillance at the Harvard Broad Institute. .

A bioinformatics expert at the University of Washington on the West Coast, Dr. Pavitra Roychoudhury told DailyMail.com that the increase in the prevalence of BA.2 in the rankings in her section did not translate into higher numbers either.

However, cases are increasing in some places, suggesting that BA.2 could impact daily numbers across the country.

BA.2 is most common in the New York and New Jersey region, accounting for 52 percent of cases, according to CDC data.

New York, which has so far been the canary in the coal mine during the pandemic, has seen a 14% increase in Covid infections in the past two weeks, making it the first state to make a significant jump in nearly two months.

Manhattan, New York’s largest population center, also saw a 17% increase last week, fueling the largest increase in the state.

However, the state still stands at 1,000 cases per day, a very small total compared to the nearly 40,000 cases per day reached at the peak of the Omicron variant.

Other states that have increased in the last two weeks include Arkansas (34% in two weeks), Nevada (23%), Colorado (22%), Vermont (7%) and Rhode Island (1%).

WHO warns that these cases could be the start of a brutal spring season for some parts of the world.

“This increase is occurring despite reduced testing in some countries, meaning the cases we’re seeing are just the tip of the iceberg,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week. Said.

Source: Daily Mail

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