The sharp increase in the incidence of COVID-19 in Russia is explained: masks have become bad manners

The rapid rise is associated with the emergence of “Pirola” and its “daughter”

St. Petersburg has been hit by a crushing wave of COVID-19. According to the telegram channel COVID-19.SPb.monitoring, which has been keeping statistics on morbidity since the beginning of the pandemic, an increase in new cases of the disease has been recorded over the past 12 weeks. Compared to the end of August – beginning of September, an increase in incidence of 10-30 (!) times was recorded. And if you consider that the real numbers are at least 10 times higher than the official ones, everything is very sad.

The governor of the city Beglov called on employers to transfer employees to remote work – however, this is not due to Covid, but to the snow cyclone that reached St. Petersburg. In any case, doctors believe that now this will benefit everyone.

“A relative in the hospital became infected with coronavirus, the temperature was 38.5, but they did not test him, the attending physician said that it looked like an acute respiratory viral infection and discharged him home the next day with a fever. On the same day, the district doctor diagnosed Covid using an antigen test. It seems that There is an unspoken order in hospitals not to pay attention to the coronavirus and not to test anyone. I don’t see any other explanations,” says St. Petersburg resident Alexey.

Just the other day, the head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova said that a vaccine against coronavirus is not required this season, because “there are no significant risks for coronavirus.” However, the incidence of Covid in Russia increased by 31.7% over the past week alone, and the number of hospitalizations increased by 33.4%.

Since November 7, the incidence in St. Petersburg has been growing by about a thousand cases per day. The number of deaths from the virus is also growing – for example, the week before last there were officially 18 such people, and last week it was already 24. The bed capacity has been expanded twice over the past few days.

As for the incidence rate in the country, last week the increase in registered cases was 58,150, and the increase in COVID-related deaths was 93. The leaders in absolute growth and hospitalizations over the week were Moscow (an increase of 10,201 people), St. Petersburg (5,834 people), Samara Region (2790), Udmurt Republic (2582), Perm Territory (2404) and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (1879).

Experts believe that such a rapid rise in incidence is associated with the appearance in the country of the Pirol variant and, especially, its “daughter” – the JN.1 substrain. According to laboratory diagnostics doctor Alexander Solovyov, this subline today demonstrates the greatest growth advantage throughout the pandemic. Today, both Pyrrole and JN.1 are classified as variants of “concern” by the World Health Organization and are under constant monitoring by WHO experts. Well-known geneticist Dmitry Prus (USA) says that more and more “Pyrola” hot spots are appearing in America: “According to the latest data, in the state of Iowa, the most advanced subvariant of “Pyrola” JN.1 jumped from 0 to 20% in two weeks.”

Alexander Solovyov believes that everything indicates that a strong winter wave of COVID-19 is beginning in the Northern Hemisphere: “Many countries report the highest concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater – Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria, the Netherlands. In addition , a significant increase in cases and hospitalizations is reported in various countries (Finland, Sweden, Canada, Poland, Italy). The Rt coefficient increases, reaching 1.36 in Poland with 50% positive for COVID-19. In Canada, the rate is forecast for the coming week “Infections in different regions range from 1 in 37 to 1 in 14 people. Hospitalizations of children are increasing.”

Russia also cannot avoid a new wave. However, apparently, no one is going to take any restrictive measures in this regard. And some doctors are perplexed. “It used to be simple: whoever doesn’t get vaccinated is a loser. But then it suddenly turned out that vaccinations haven’t worked for a year! And masks have already become bad form. People faint at the sight of a respirator in public places. Our people are completely undisciplined and quickly forget even about basic hygiene rules that must be observed during any rise in the incidence of respiratory viruses. Therefore, the ARVI season will not be easy,” one therapist told MK on condition of anonymity.