IS boom of infected Covid in Italy, over 132 thousand in one day with a rate of positivity over 28% and nearly half a million tampons performed. The dead which return to approaching the threshold of 100, exactly 94. The percentage of seats in non-critical area hospital wards occupied by patients with Covid-19 rises by one point in 24 hours, returning to 12%, while the intensive care, notes Agenas (National Agency for Regional Health Services).
Omicron, peak in Europe: in France and Spain there is a record of infections
Boom of Omicron infections
The virus runs in Italy and 200 thousand cases have been exceeded in neighboring France. We look with apprehension at the arrival of the new variants, and among these in particular the latest one from India, BA.2.75, for fear that it will increase the growth of the curves even more. “We will deal with the relapse on hospitals,” said the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza, which announced an “expanded” recall for the fourth dose. The hypothesis is to extend it to the 60-year-olds and is also evaluated for the over 50s.
Vaccines for the young are on the rise
In the meantime, the number of anti-Covid vaccines available for young people is increasing: the company Novavax announced that the European Commission has approved the Extended Conditional Marketing Authorization for Nuvaxovid in adolescents in Europe aged 12-17, following a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Meanwhile, we look at the new sub-variant of Omicron – BA.2.75 – reported in India last June 2, which is “apparently rapidly growing”, says virologist Tom Peacock, of Imperial College London, in a tweet.
????for our latest preprint on the intrahost evolution of SARS-CoV-2 virus in an immunocompromised individual (60s) with a history of cancer chronically infected for at least 471 days (ongoing) with consistently replicating viruses at a high viral load. 1/nhttps://t.co/qBNEjXTqMt
– Chrispin Chaguza (@ChrispinChaguza) July 3, 2022
What do we know about the new Omicron variant
At the moment there are no scientific publications on this newcomer of the Omicron family, but reports on the web among groups of experts, which above all reveal how this new sub-variant is a second generation, derived in turn from the Omicron BA.2 but different from this one due to nine mutations on the Spike protein, with which the virus attaches itself to human cells. Precisely because of the latter, which probably make it more transmissible, it was preferred to distinguish it from BA, 2 “It is worth keeping an eye on,” observes Peacock. Another probable feature is the speed with which it has spread over a month from India to Germany and Canada to New Zealand. However, it is too early to draw conclusions, observes Peakok, considering that the “sequences collected so far are few”. “In Italy it has not been detected,” says geneticist Massimo Zollo, coordinator of the Ceinge Covid-19 Task Force. “It is too early to say today that the variant will become predominant: we need data that we do not have today, nor can we imagine”, explains the geneticist, for whom “he was sure that new variants would arrive and that others could arrive, since there are no longer any restriction”.
Omicron 5, Bassetti: “Beware of the new sub-variant”. Hope: “We will widen the age of the vaccine recall”
The opinion of virologists
For the infectious disease specialist Matteo Bassetti, “it is worth keeping an eye, but without alarm,” the new sub-variant “as it could be even more contagious than Omicron 5 and have a high capacity to infect, healed people and vaccinated “. Meanwhile, there is expectation for the arrival of updated vaccines. According to Giorgio Palù, president of the Italian drug agency (Aifa), the bivalent mRNA one updated on the BA.1 strain could “be approved” by September. For those updated on BA.4 and 5 we should wait for the winter. And for Palù it should be administered «to all over 60s regardless of the presence or absence of pathologies. After all, that’s what you do with the flu shot ».