Academician Lvov predicted the second wave of dangerous flu in Russia

This year, Russians are facing tweedemia, a season when flu and covid go hand in hand. Of course, there are also a lot of other viruses characteristic of the season – RSV, parainfluenza, adenovirus and others – but still it is the flu that determines the incidence pattern this autumn and winter, which accounts for from half to two thirds of all ARVI diseases. Moreover, a severe pandemic strain of 2009, then called swine (H1N1), is raging in the country. And although, according to Rospotrebnadzor, this week the incidence of influenza in the country fell by 7% on average, MK experts warn of a second wave of influenza, which may begin after the New Year holidays. In addition, a dangerous variant of the XBB coronavirus has come to Russia – judging by other countries, it can cause us not only a sharp increase in the incidence, but also severe hospitalizations.

Rospotrebnadzor reported that the incidence of influenza and SARS in the country decreased by 7% over the past week and amounted to 1.7 million people. And as soon as the incidence began to decline, the department decided to speed up testing for influenza and covid – test results should now be ready within 24 hours from the moment of collection. It’s really important to test now. According to the symptoms, no doctor will be able to distinguish the flu from SARS or coronavirus, while the treatment of diseases is fundamentally different. For example, with a coronavirus infection, blood-thinning drugs are often needed, but with the flu they are categorically not recommended. So give up self-medication: if you have symptoms of SARS, call a doctor.

If a week ago the share of influenza in the structure of respiratory viruses exceeded 50%, then last week it reached 76.5% (the share of coronavirus last week was only about 7%); The most popular is the pandemic influenza A (H1N1) 2009, which is raging in all regions of the Russian Federation. There are also RS viruses, rhinoviruses and metapneumoviruses, but the flu has already become the main viral disease of this season.

Rospotrebnadzor sees a catch in reducing the number of cases: it is possible that on the eve of the holidays, many people simply do not go to medical institutions so as not to be on sick leave and have time to deal with the accumulated cases before the New Year. And this is quite logical. In social networks, many doctors talk about the fact that, judging by the appeals from “familiar acquaintances” in private, there is no question of any decline.

“The epidemic has not ended, it continues, and this option, I think, will be replaced by a second wave,” says Dmitry Lvov, a well-known Russian virologist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. — Perhaps it will be very soon, but maybe closer to spring. The second wave will be determined by another variant of influenza – most likely, also A, although influenza B also circulates.

– The flu was gone for two years, now he has begun to catch up. Why is this happening in terms of virology?

“Usually, when there is a pandemic, the dominant virus crowds out many others, and sometimes all respiratory ones. This is what has happened in the last two years. During this time, the population has largely lost immunity to the flu, and now that the flu has come – and it had to come – the majority of the population is sick. And since a variant of the pandemic influenza of 2009 came to our country, which has a high virulence, it proceeds hard.

– Other options have come to other countries …

– Yes, that is right. But in any case, everyone will be ill with everyone. Especially it is necessary to beware of children, pregnant women and chronically ill people – those who have a weakened immune system, the flu can threaten with serious complications.

– It is believed that there is a small percentage of people who do not get the flu at all. Why?

“It still needs to be proven, I don’t think they don’t get sick. Maybe they get sick easier or asymptomatic, it depends on the level of immunity.

…According to experts, in different countries now there will be different options for superimposing the waves of COVID-19 and influenza. For many countries, the worst health situation will be in January. And yet there is one positive thing about the flu – it has a seasonality. And by spring, maximum by May, everything will be over. But the coronavirus has no periodicity and is not tied to the seasons: it flares up sporadically, and no one has yet fully understood what factors cause the rise of waves. Now many experts have begun to get confused: what is the wave of coronavirus? In France, for example, they talk about the ninth. And in the USA they stopped counting, but the situation there is getting worse: New York is once again becoming a “hot spot” for COVID-19. In October, a wave began to rise here, caused by the Omicron sub-options BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. However, in December, everything changed dramatically – the leadership was taken by the “newcomers” XBB and XBB.1.5, which are rapidly spreading. The last variant shows the best ability in comparison with all the previous ones in evading antibodies. The US is the first country after Singapore where the XBB caused a massive wave.

XBB has already come to Russia and has begun to spread here. According to Dmitry Prus, a well-known geneticist from the USA, in St. Petersburg by mid-December it was already detected in more than a third of cases of covid. We may feel its impact already in January-February.

Today, many experts say that covid will stay with us forever, and no one can predict what its new mutations will lead to. At the same time, there is more and more evidence that even a mild course of the virus in some cases significantly undermines health and even asymptomatic carriage of SARS-CoV-2 is unsafe. COVID-19 increases the risk of developing or worsening many chronic diseases. So, according to the research group of the Nagoya Institute of Technology, the risks of myocardial infarction by 10.7-24.6 times, heart failure by 6.6 -10.4 times, venous thrombosis – 26.1-53.1 times, diabetes – 6.3-8.4 times.

In addition, the introduction of the virus into the body often reactivates (wakes up) latent viruses – such as Epstein-Barr virus, herpes virus type 6, endogenous retrovirus. The risks of various adverse diseases increase with each infection, and the resource of the immune system is reduced.