Recently, the number of cases of COVID-19 has started to increase alarmingly, and most of the patients are children, warns pediatrician Mihai Craiu. Among the reasons, experts explain, would be the wave of heat wave that is hitting Romania these days. What are the symptoms of the new form of COVID.
Pediatrician Mihai Craiu reported that 26% of the tests performed on Monday, July 15, at the National Institute for Mother and Child Health in Bucharest were positive for Covid-19. This, in the context where there is no more room to throw a needle in the reserves of the isolation ward: all the beds are occupied with patients.
“High fever, cough and nasal secretions, reduced appetite, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea – this is how the clinical form of new mutations of the Omicron variant now looks. Take care, wash your hands, stay away from those who look cold and wear a mask in crowded places“, the doctor told the parents.
The reason for the increase in the number of cases of illness with Covid-19, a disease from which we seem to no longer escape, is attributed to the heat wave, explained specialist Octavian Jurma for “Adevărul”. “We are witnessing a paradox, because in the cold season we usually face an increase in the number of illnesses. It is atypical what is happening now but it is, in a way, also explainable”, he told us.
Romania is currently among the most vulnerable countries to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Because, says the biostatistician Jurma, after 2022 vaccination has dropped among the population below 1%. “People don’t wear masks anymore, they don’t protect themselves anymore, nobody gets vaccinated anymore. But what we need to know is that the pandemic has not passed. Diseases still exist around the globe, but in fewer numbers. Anyone who thinks the virus has disappeared is seriously mistaken. It has not disappeared, instead it undergoes mutations one after another”.
Heat reactivates SARS-CoV-2. The simple explanation of a paradox
Most of us know that the flu virus is mainly active in the cold season. In the summer the number of cases tends to decrease. “In general, we faced three waves of Covid per year: one in the spring, one very mild in the summer and the most difficult to manage, the one in the fall. However, since the summer of last year, this pattern has changed“, explains Octavian Jurma. “The biggest wave of last year was registered, the peak, also during the summer. However, the winter wave was much milder, we could even say the mildest wave so far”.
Explication? Covid-19 reactivated strongly during the summer due to the excessive heat recorded in the territory of our country and which made us take shelter in closed, cool and not naturally ventilated spaces. “The code red of this period made people shelter in closed and cool spaces, where the temperature is regulated by air conditioners. There is practically no natural ventilation of the rooms. Then, these devices do not have the filters either clean or replaced with new ones. The air in the rooms should be filtered in such a way that it cleans itself of viruses. Imagine the risk we expose ourselves to when we travel by subway, when we go to the office, when we leave our children at school, kindergarten, after school. The heat outside does not allow us to ventilate the rooms. We’re all huddled together, breathing the same tainted air and exchanging viruses.”
In spring or summer days with normal temperatures, when people socialized a lot outdoors on terraces, through parks, in open areas, the spread of the virus was kept under control. “I had no problems. Even in the winter I was fine. But this wave is clearly produced by the wave of the heat who locked us in our houses. And last summer I had the same problem, I had a similar situation. August saw bigger increases.”
Octavian Jurma is of the opinion that the number of Covid infections will increase in the next period. “This year we will also have the peak in August”.
Children, among the most affected
The most vulnerable people are children this season, draw the attention of doctors. “And rightfully so. And let me tell you the reasons. One: Romanian legislation does not allow the vaccination of minors under the age of 5. These children represent the immune naive population. This means that their body has never encountered the SARS CoV 2 virus. Therefore, they have zero immunity. Two: because of the heat wave, these children are kept more at home, in classrooms at nursery, kindergarten, after-school, etc. Without immunization and exposed to the virus that circulates in closed spaces, they are unquestionably victims. Three: children become infected very often after coming into contact with family members, unvaccinated adults”, explain the situation Octavian Jurma.
It asks the authorities to introduce vaccination among children under five precisely to protect their lives. “It is unimaginable what is happening. I don’t know if there is any other country in the European Union that has not approved the vaccination of children under this age threshold. In Romania, on the other hand, these children are completely discovered”.
“If a strain like Delta hits us, we die on our heads”
The vaccine does not protect you from the disease, but it reduces the number of people hospitalized in a serious condition and the number of deaths. “For example, if we are not vaccinated, for every 1,000 infections we have 100 people in the hospital. If we are all vaccinated, for every 1,000 infections we have 10 people in the hospital. The world says that 10 or 100 per Covid patient would be few. But from a public health point of view there are many“, continues the specialist.
And we have another problem reported by Octavian Jurma: “In Romania we don’t really have vaccines anymore. You want to immunize yourself and you can’t. The reason? I did not comply the contract with Pfizer. We refused to pay an installment of the serums that we also ordered. Therefore, while European countries have renewed their contracts and stocked up on new vaccines to last them for the next four years, Romania is getting nothing. If a strain like Delta hits us, we die on our heads.” warns the specialist. “In Western countries, the situation is constantly monitored. Our authorities act as if the virus doesn’t even exist anymore. But it exists, and currently we are dealing with even two strains: FLiRT and LB 1. The latter should worry us because it is more aggressive, in the UK the population was recommended to wear a mask”.
1200 new cases of COVID-19 in the last week
The National Institute of Public Health (INSP) reported on Tuesday an alarming increase in cases of COVID-19 in Romania, with 1,256 new infections registered in the week of July 8-14, marking an increase of 82.3% compared to the previous week. According to a press release cited by Agerpres, of the total number of new cases, 419 are re-infected patients, tested positive more than 90 days after the first infection.
During the same period, five deaths caused by SARS-CoV-2 were reported. All deceased patients had comorbidities, and three of them were vaccinated against COVID. So far, the total number of deaths caused by COVID-19 in Romania has reached 68,962, and the total number of cases of infection has reached 3,534,314.
In the last week, 958 RT-PCR tests and 7,655 rapid antigen tests were performed. In total, at national level, 14,019,494 RT-PCR tests and 14,851,576 rapid antigen tests were processed.
Alarm signal from WHO
COVID-19 still causes about 1,700 deaths per week globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) has drawn attention, calling on risk groups to vaccinate against this disease. The director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned about the constant decline in vaccination coverage, AFP informs, quoted by Agerpres.
Despite the deaths, “the data show that vaccination coverage has decreased among health personnel and people over 60 years of age, who constitute two of the groups with the highest risk”, said the WHO director. “WHO recommends that people belonging to the most at-risk groups receive a vaccine against COVID-19 within the first 12 months after the last dose”, he recalled.
More than seven million deaths associated with COVID-19 have been reported by the WHO, although the real toll of the pandemic seems much higher.
The virus at the origin of COVID-19 was detected in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019. WHO is calling on governments to continue monitoring and sequencing the virus and to continue to guarantee access to affordable and reliable tests, treatments and vaccines.
