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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Staying safe over the holiday season

by

1154 days ago
20211224
People dressed in Santa Claus costumes cross the finish line during a morning run in Madrid, on December 19, 2021 [AP/Paul White]

People dressed in Santa Claus costumes cross the finish line during a morning run in Madrid, on December 19, 2021 [AP/Paul White]

An Op-Ed by DR SOUMYA SWAMI­NATHAN, Chief Sci­en­tist of the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion
(Orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished Dec 23, 2021, in AL JAZEERA On­line)

 

● Vac­cines can of­fer pro­tec­tion but mask­ing and avoid­ing large crowds are still es­sen­tial to keep­ing COVID-19 away ●

 

(AL JAZEERA) — Whether it is the fam­i­ly gath­er­ings for Christ­mas or crowds con­gre­gat­ing in city cen­tres as the bell strikes mid­night on New Year’s Eve, there is con­cern that large num­bers of peo­ple mix­ing dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son could re­sult in spikes of COVID-19 in­fec­tions. In­deed, many peo­ple who will be cel­e­brat­ing are ask­ing how best to stay safe over the fes­tive pe­ri­od.

With the new vari­ant, Omi­cron, show­ing ex­po­nen­tial growth and high trans­mis­si­bil­i­ty, there are cer­tain things you can do to keep your­self and your loved ones safe dur­ing this pe­ri­od.

The first line of de­fence is vac­ci­na­tion. Al­though vac­cines ap­pear to be less ef­fec­tive in pre­vent­ing in­fec­tion with Omi­cron, they still of­fer sig­nif­i­cant pro­tec­tion against a se­vere form of the dis­ease that may ne­ces­si­tate hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion. So if you have not got­ten vac­ci­nat­ed, this is a great time to do so. And if you are im­muno­com­pro­mised or at risk, get­ting a boost­er shot can help boost your im­mu­ni­ty to the virus.

While wealth­i­er coun­tries have at least 70 per­cent of their pop­u­la­tions vac­ci­nat­ed and are rush­ing to of­fer boost­er shots, low-in­come coun­tries have not even been able to vac­ci­nate all their health work­ers and most at-risk pop­u­la­tions. The vac­cines have not been shared fair­ly, which the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion has con­sis­tent­ly said leaves us open to new vari­ants ap­pear­ing, which could un­der­mine our cur­rent health tools and dri­ve fur­ther waves of the virus.

Vac­cine na­tion­al­ism and hoard­ing by some coun­tries have un­der­mined eq­ui­ty, and cre­at­ed the ide­al con­di­tions for the emer­gence of the Omi­cron vari­ant in a re­gion which has low vac­ci­na­tion cov­er­age.

Per­haps this hol­i­day sea­son, we can re­flect on the in­jus­tice of vac­cine in­equity and in­crease pub­lic pres­sure on gov­ern­ments and man­u­fac­tur­ers to do more to share li­cences and trans­fer tech­nol­o­gy and know-how, es­pe­cial­ly with the new WHO-led mR­NA tech trans­fer hubs, the first of which has been es­tab­lished in South Africa. Amid the worst pan­dem­ic in 100 years, it seems lu­di­crous that all ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing ac­cess to in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, have not been shared.

While vac­ci­na­tion is cru­cial to com­bat­ting the pan­dem­ic, it is not enough. The last two years have been tough and al­though we are tired of the pan­dem­ic, the virus is not tired of us. While it is crit­i­cal for our men­tal and phys­i­cal health to see loved ones, the gath­er­ing of large crowds is where the virus can be par­tic­u­lar­ly pro­lif­ic. We are start­ing to see ex­am­ples from aero­planes, night­clubs and even ho­tel quar­an­tine where the Omi­cron vari­ant is spread­ing more ef­fi­cient­ly than ever.

The new vari­ant ap­pears to be the most trans­mis­si­ble so far and able to break through vac­cine pro­tec­tion more eas­i­ly than Delta or oth­er vari­ants pre­ced­ing it. Al­though im­mu­ni­ty con­ferred not on­ly by an­ti­bod­ies but by B and T cells (which are hard­er to mea­sure) re­duces the risk of se­vere ill­ness and death, clear­ly the threat re­mains and so pub­lic health and so­cial mea­sures re­main crit­i­cal tools to re­duc­ing the num­ber of in­fec­tions.

Giv­en that COVID-19 is a res­pi­ra­to­ry virus, which spreads main­ly through the air via aerosols (small droplets) and larg­er droplets, it is im­por­tant to know how best to keep one­self safe. By talk­ing, singing and even just breath­ing, peo­ple with COVID-19 can eas­i­ly pass the virus to oth­ers. Ob­vi­ous­ly, the clos­er you are and longer time you spend with some­one who is sick, the more like­ly you are to get the virus.

Vi­ral trans­mis­sion is fur­ther op­ti­mised in in­door set­tings where win­dows and doors are closed, ven­ti­la­tion is poor and where peo­ple are not wear­ing masks. When cas­es are spik­ing, there is al­ways the op­tion to work and con­nect on dig­i­tal plat­forms, but I un­der­stand the fa­tigue with us­ing video shar­ing plat­forms for far too many as­pects of our lives. We of­ten need that phys­i­cal con­nec­tion for all as­pects of our health.

And it is pos­si­ble to min­imise risk and keep your­self and loved ones safe. For ex­am­ple, if you are go­ing to meet friends or fam­i­ly, try to do so out­side and in as small a group as pos­si­ble. If it is in­side, try and keep win­dows open so that there is a reg­u­lar ex­change of air from out­side. If it is too cold, open them reg­u­lar­ly so fresh air can cir­cu­late. Good qual­i­ty, well-fit­ting masks worn cor­rect­ly can re­al­ly help re­duce in­fec­tion and the lat­est ev­i­dence sug­gests that uni­ver­sal mask wear­ing can re­duce chances of in­fec­tion sig­nif­i­cant­ly. In fact, masks have been de­scribed as a vac­cine in your pock­et and the WHO has de­tailed guide­lines on how to make high-qual­i­ty masks.

Every­one el­i­gi­ble should get vac­ci­nat­ed as soon as pos­si­ble. How­ev­er, even if you are vac­ci­nat­ed and you try your best to stay safe, Omi­cron is still so trans­mis­si­ble that you could come in­to con­tact with the virus at some point. If you start to feel symp­toms, it is im­por­tant to test as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. While you await re­sults, try and iso­late from oth­er peo­ple so you can break the chain of trans­mis­sion.

The im­por­tance of test­ing ear­ly is al­so linked to the ef­fec­tive­ness of ad­min­is­tered treat­ment, so the soon­er peo­ple know whether they are sick, the eas­i­er it is to de­ter­mine when they need to be treat­ed or whether they need hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion. Luck­i­ly, new oral treat­ments which re­duce the sever­i­ty of COVID-19 are be­com­ing avail­able.

Fes­tive sea­sons are dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate dur­ing a pan­dem­ic but through vac­ci­na­tion and pub­lic health mea­sures, there are ways to min­imise risk and still spend time with loved ones. As this year ends and an­oth­er starts, I am as op­ti­mistic as ever that if gov­ern­ments and cit­i­zens work to­geth­er, we can get through the acute stage of this pan­dem­ic to­geth­er and use that mo­men­tum to tack­le the oth­er chal­lenges of our time.

___

The views ex­pressed in this ar­ti­cle are the au­thor’s own and do not nec­es­sar­i­ly re­flect Al Jazeera’s ed­i­to­r­i­al stance, nor that of the Trinidad & To­ba­go Guardian.

COVID-19HealthUnited Nations


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