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Finding out where you are most at risk of contracting COVID-19 is harder than ever in Omicron’s sixth wave of Canada, and tried and tested strategies to avoid infection are proving less effective in everyday life.
The rapidly spreading BA.2 sub-option avoids all our layers of protection – from vaccines to masks – and feeds the surge in COVID-19 levels in Canada during a few restrictions.
But while trying to completely avoid the risk of COVID-19 is unrealistic, abandoning strategies that have worked to reduce the impact of the virus is also not – making this phase of the pandemic incredibly difficult to navigate.
“We haven’t experienced what it’s like to live with this virus while we’re doing it a little bit to stop it,” said Dr. Jeremy Faust, a doctor at Brigham and Womens Hospital’s emergency department and an instructor at Harvard Medical School who recently wrote for navigation risk.
“We’ve never been in a situation where we have the least protection against infection and those options that are just amazingly contagious.”
It’s hard to judge, hard to avoid
Faust says that because everyone has a different risk threshold in their daily lives, trying to navigate a pandemic based on your supposed best interest is a dead end because many people are unlikely to have judged the situation correctly.
“We may be perfectly right one day and be safe, and the next day we may be completely wrong and be personally at risk, or we may put someone else at risk,” he said. “And it’s this variability that makes your head spin if you stop thinking about it.”
Dr Linora Saxinger, an infectious disease doctor and associate professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, said part of the problem with Omicron was that it broke through all of our multi-layered defenses “much more effectively than ever before”.
“All of these layers still reduce your risk, it’s just that the attack on the layers is much more aggressive right now,” she said. “It’s like there’s a lot more knocking on the door.”
However, Saxinger said so Canada significantly underestimates the number of current cases there is still a “forest fire from COVID” raging across the country, with recent broadcast signals Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba despite limited tests.
“The risk of infection has increased significantly over the past three months,” said Erin Bromridge, an associate professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth who studies infectious diseases.
“And it’s getting harder for those who have avoided the infection so far to continue to avoid the infection.”
With the abolition of mask mandates in many places, some are giving up, creating a situation with less protection against what doctors call a “surprisingly contagious” virus. (Evan Mitsui / CBC)
Quick Switches playing field
Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr to reduce the rate of infections.
“We can still do a lot to reduce the current trajectory,” she told a news conference on Wednesday.
“We know that using personal precautions such as masking helps reduce transmission. Similarly, receiving a booster dose not only protects you from serious illness, but also provides a level of protection against infection.”
But the effectiveness of masking to prevent the transmission of Omicron and its highly contagious sub-variants is not perfect, and protection against booster infection appears to be declining rapidly.
Lincy Marr, a researcher on airborne transmission of infectious diseases and a professor at Virginia Tech, says that while masks have the same level of filtration for each virus, our chances of infection may be higher with these more portable options.
“One thing that may be different in the options is that people can throw more virus into the air… You are exposed to more viruses, so your chances of infection are higher,” she said. “Another thing that may be different is that the infectious dose may be lower.”
Marr said there seems to be a “significant change” with the masks against Omicron and its sub-variants, which means that a cloth mask that may have been somewhat protective before is no longer enough and better masks may be needed.
“Masks could have helped to dull a little, but they would not have stopped the wave or prevented it,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease doctor and member of the COVID-19 vaccine working group. Ontario.
“I am very much in favor of indoor camouflage, I very much agree with ‘the mask mandate should not have been revoked’, but that would not have stopped or prevented this wave.”
WATCH The Canadians called for reinforcements to blunt the 6th wave:
Canadians call for booster vaccines against COVID-19 to blunt 6th wave
All indications are that Canada is going through the sixth pandemic wave, confirms Dr. Teresa Tam. Her message to Canadians: wear a mask and get stronger if you meet the conditions. 02:00
Additional booster doses of the vaccine are also useful in preventing severe diseases in the population, but a large new Israeli study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that the fourth dose of protection against infection decreased after only four weeks.
The observational study focused only on adults 60 years of age and older and found that protection against severe disease did not decrease during the six weeks after the fourth dose, but data were too limited to determine whether the second booster provided better long-term protection.
“I’m not surprised that fourth doses do not generate much lasting protection against infection,” said Dr. David Naylor, who led the federal investigation into the SARS epidemic in Canada in 2003 and is now co-chair of the COVID Immunity Task Force. 19 of the Federal Government. .
“Two strikes were much more effective against Delta. What has obviously changed is that two or even three shots will not prevent you from getting one of the Omicron sub-strains.”
Naylor said the fourth dose made sense for elderly Canadians, immunocompromised and those with comorbidities, adding that we should be careful with Israeli data because of the different dose distances there and their sole reliance on the Pfizer vaccine.
“We also have a lot more people with hybrid immunity – one, two or three injections, plus an infection in the last few months that could increase their level of protection,” he said.
“It’s a fast-changing playing field.”
A well-fitting mask still filters newer strains of coronavirus in the same way, experts say. But the effectiveness of the masks has decreased, perhaps because highly contagious strains mean exposure to more viral particles. (Evan Mitsui / CBC)
It is worth postponing the infection if possible
So while avoiding infection with COVID-19 may not be feasible for most people, postponing it until you are as safe as possible has benefits – and there are still ways you can reduce the risk.
“To try to avoid infection, people still need to avoid enclosed spaces that are crowded or make close contact,” said Bromridge, who wrote viral blog post in May 2020, shared by millions, explaining the places where people are most at risk of COVID-19 infection.
“When in these situations people have to wear masks of higher quality than they used before – preferably N95 or equivalent – and limit the time in these spaces. Duration matters.
Increased immunity, greater availability of COVID treatment and two years of knowledge among members of the medical community also help ensure that when people become ill, they receive the best possible care.
It is still a crisis, but the situation in Canada and abroad is constantly improving, Bogoch stressed.
“I spoke to people in their 80s who have been vaccinated three times, who have received COVID… but who will recover from this infection without having to come to the hospital. That’s amazing, “he said.
“Before the vaccines were available, many of these people would get very sick, go to the hospital, need intensive care and many would die.
In Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic – with one of the highest global deaths – show new research vaccination efforts have halved the number of deaths.
Vaccines prevented about 150,000 deaths last year, according to the country’s National Health Institute (ISS) on Wednesday, as well as more than 500,000 hospitalizations and more than 55,000 intensive care units.
Experts suggest that people continue to use precautions such as masks and vaccines, because it is still worth postponing COVID infection if possible. (Evan Mitsui / CBC)
Focus on being “maximally vaccinated”
Although it is difficult to avoid COVID infection, it is worth saving time if you can while the scientific community develops and approves drugs and treatments that could reduce this risk even more, said Dr. Abraar Karan, Infectious Diseases Associate diseases at Stanford University in Stanford, California
“The fact that they now have more knowledge about how to treat COVID means that when they have these big leaps, there are tools they can use to reduce mortality from infection,” he said.
This week alone, Health Canada has authorized AstraZeneca antibody-based therapy for the prevention of COVID-19 infections in immunocompromised individuals 12 years of age and older.
Ontario has also promised to increase access to Paxlovidan antivirus from Pfizer that has so far been difficult to access across Canada, but can reduce the risk of death when taken early in …
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