With ominous echoes of past winters, as the mercury is dropping, new COVID variants are spreading.
It’s just under a year since a world that was finally shedding its masks was shaken by the emergence of the Omicron variant. Within a few weeks of its November 24, 2021, documentation at the World Health Organization, it was infecting larger numbers than any previous strain.
A year earlier, winter in much of the northern hemisphere was dominated by the massive spread of the Alpha variant, then widely known as the UK variant. In Israel, this meant the third nationwide lockdown.
Today, descendants of the original Omicron are spreading fast. In many Asian countries a lineage called XBB is making major inroads.
In Europe, North America, Africa and Israel the BQ.1 family is on the rise. It accounts for about a third of cases in America. In Israel, it accounts for 17 percent of reported cases, according to Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, a top epidemiologist and a government coronavirus adviser.
“We expect it to start spreading quickly, and this should raise our concerns and prompt us to vaccinate and take precautions,” he told The Times of Israel.
He said that experts are still waiting to understand vital facts about the BQ.1 variants, such as exactly how fast they spread, how well they dodge immunity and how severely they cause illness. But he said that weeks ago the government and top doctors were already discussing scenarios for possible winter variants.
“We held roundtables with all ministries and the Home Front Command,” said Davidovitch, a professor at Ben Gurion University and a leader in the Israel Association of Public Health Physicians. “We don’t know how case numbers will change, but we do know that every winter, upper respiratory illnesses can lead to a burden on the health system.
“One scenario we looked at involves lots of COVID, but in a variant like Omicron that often isn’t severe. Another scenario involves a new variant that is more severe than Omicron, like Delta was.”
Israelis are unlikely to see restrictions reimposed if there is widespread infection by Omicron or another variant with a similarly low ratio of hospitalizations and serious cases, said Davidovitch. “But with a variant that causes more severe outcomes, Israel might consider surveillance and some restrictions on large gatherings,” he added.
This would mean the public would, once again, feel the impact of coronavirus rules, though Davidovitch said even with a serious variant, it is hard to imagine turning back the clock to widespread quarantines of people who encounter a carrier or significant restrictions on public life.
This will be the third pandemic winter. For Israel, government graphs give a clear picture of the surges that have come with the onset of winter over the last two years. The numbers of people hospitalized in serious condition peaked in late January or early February.
The same is true for the number of daily deaths, which is represented in green, while a moving average is shown in orange.
Globally, cases are falling. The number of new weekly cases decreased by 17% during the week of October 24 t0 30, 2022,…
Read More: Cases still low but new COVID strains spreading, with ominous echoes of past winters