geoff: The U.S. And other parts
of the world are in the midst of
another covid-19 wave.
Infections and hospitalizations
are on the rise this winter, and
a new variant is responsible for
a majority of those cases.
John yang has the latest, and a
look at whether we need to
change our approach to the
virus.
John: Geoff, the world health
organization said yesterday that
December nearly 10,000 covid
deaths were reported in Europe
and the Americas.
In the United States, hospital
admissions are on the rise, but
still far lower than previous
years.
In Europe and the Americas, icu
admissions are up 62% from the
month before.
The director general of the
W.H.O. Said public health
officials need to be vigilant.
>> Although covid-19 is no
longer a global health
emergency, the virus is still
circulating, changing, and still
killing. Data from various
sources indicate increasing
transmission during December,
fuelled by gatherings over the
holiday period, and by the jn.1
variant, which is now the most
commonly reported variant
globally.
John: So, what do these current
trends mean?
Dr. Eric topol is the founder
and director of the Scripps
research translational
institute.
He's been warning about the
risks of the new variant.
How concerned are you about this
uptick?
>> We are seeing a massive
number of infections,
second-most throughout the
pandemic after omicron.
While the hospitalizations are
not as bad, and you mentioned
already that death toll, that is
reassuring because of some of
the immunity we have built up,
but this virus has evolved and
is markedly different than
previous versions we have seen,
and that is a challenge for the
spread and infections and the
potential of long covid in many
of those people as well.
John: Talk about that evolution,
the new variant, jn.1, is it
more dangerous, more infectious?
Tell us about it.
Dr. Topol: Over the course of
the pandemic, beginning our
fifth year here, there's only
two times that the variant came
along with more than 30 new
mutations in a spike protein.
Usually a variant has a couple,
a few, but this one we call an
omicron event, because that was
the first time we saw one.
Back in the fall, we got to see
a rise to the precursor for
jn.1, with 30 mutations in the
spike protein.
When you have this many
mutations, the virus is able to
bypass our normal immune
response, so it gets to be very
infectious, easily getting
people who have already been
getting infected, no less those
who have not had covid four.
Before.
-- Have not had covid before.
It is bad that this virus is
relentless in finding ways to
basically reinvent itself and to
get into our upper airway and
all of the other potential
things that can happen after
that.
John: You mentioned long covid.
You have been very vocal about
the need to understand long
covid, to understand who is at
risk for long covid.
Express your concerns and
whether or not repeated
infections play any role.
Dr. Topol: There is no question
that repeated infections
introduce a higher risk of long
covid.
The problem with long covid is
we do not know who is going to
get this.
Over time, since the beginning
of the pandemic, it looks like
the incidence has dropped some,
and that is partly because
vaccinations are quite
protective, 40% or 50% reduction
of long covid, as well as with
boosters, but the problem is,
even with vaccinations or
without, some people can have
this terrible, long-term problem
of their immune system getting
totally out of sorts and having
self-directed antibodies and so
many markers of inflammation
across the body throughout every
organ system, no less a
disabling set of symptoms.
Even if that is just a couple
percent of people in this
current wave, this big, global
serves, that is still a lot of
people who have added to the
tens of millions of people
currently suffering from long
covid around the world, and we
don't have any treatment for it.
We know some things that can
prevent it, but we have nothing
yet that has been substantiated
to treat long covid.
John: You had an op-ed column in
the Los Angeles times last week.
He wrote, "It's crickets from
the white house on covid now,
with no update on an updated
booster or masking.
The Biden administration has
done too little." What would you
like to see the administration
do?
Dr. Topol: A lot more than it is
doing.
In the first year of the
pandemic, we saw operation warp
speed and took this virus as an
existential threat and pulled
out all the stops.
But right now we need oral or
nasal vaccines to stop
infections, to stop spread, to
be variant proof, whatever
this virus mutates to in the
times ahead.
We have a small amount of
funding towards that end, but
not enough.
The messaging has been poor.
Even the people at highest risk,
about 35% of them have had the
updated booster that has been
available since September.
That is the highest risk people,
of advanced age.
We had 95% of those same
high-risk people getting the
initial primary series of the
vaccine.
We are not doing enough.
We've known this was coming.
We have seen countries in Europe
that had wastewater levels of
the virus that were
unprecedented, even exceeding
omicron.
It's not like the virus was
going to stay there.
We knew it was coming since
September, October, and only in
recent weeks have health systems
started to get masking back as a
policy.
We are not doing enough to
prepare or manage this big
surge.
Amna: Dr. Eric topol, thank you
very much.
Dr. Topol: Thank you, John.