On December 20, at the press conference of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council, Wang Guiqiang, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Peking University First Hospital,
:
As the pathogenicity of the Omicron strain has significantly declined, and at the same time as vaccination has become widespread, the characteristics of death after new coronavirus infection have also changed greatly.
is different from the epidemic in Wuhan in early 2020, when most patients died of new coronavirus respiratory failure. Now, after infection with the Omicron strain, it mainly invades the upper respiratory tract, and the proportion of lower respiratory tract pneumonia is relatively low. There are also some pneumonia , but it rarely causes respiratory failure. It has also been seen from clinical practice that the current main cause of death after infection with the Omicron strain is underlying diseases, and few people actually die directly from respiratory failure caused by new coronavirus infection.
In order to reflect the death situation caused by the new coronavirus epidemic scientifically, objectively and realistically, the National Health Commission recently organized experts to conduct demonstrations and issued a notice to clearly scientifically classify related death cases, mainly in two aspects:
Caused by the new coronavirus Pneumonia and respiratory failure are the primary death diagnoses, and are classified as deaths caused by new coronavirus infection;
deaths caused by other diseases and basic diseases, such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, , myocardial infarction and other diseases, are not classified as deaths caused by new coronavirus .
In order to better standardize the determination of deaths caused by the COVID-19 epidemic, consultation and death case discussions are currently required to determine whether the patient died of COVID-19 or other underlying diseases. Therefore, we do not avoid the harm of the new crown, but we must also look at the harm of the new crown scientifically. What does
think about the saying "Morning sun brings good morning"? Is the infection time of
regular? A reporter from
asked: We have noticed that with the recent increase in positive cases, the saying "morning is good, morning is good" has been spread. What do experts think of this statement? Is there a pattern in time for infection with the new coronavirus?
Wang Guiqiang, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Peking University First Hospital, said that at present, the pathogenicity of Omicron has been significantly reduced. After infection, some patients still develop clinical symptoms, including fever, muscle and joint aches, sore throat, etc., which will seriously affect the quality of life and normal work. Although the infectious disease in Omicron is currently very strong and the pressure for prevention and control is great, we still hope to flatten the epidemic or prolong its duration and avoid a large number of outbreaks in a short period of time. Once a large number of patients break out in a short period of time, it will seriously affect the entire social order and people's livelihood. It will also cause huge pressure and even crowding of medical institutions, affecting the treatment of normal and critical patients. Although Omicron is highly contagious and is self-limiting after infection, with relatively low pathogenicity or severity, intentional infection is not advocated or recommended.
Wang Guiqiang suggested that the elderly with underlying diseases and those who have not been vaccinated should take good protection and not be infected at the peak of the first round of the epidemic. There may be uneven distribution or crowding of medical resources, resulting in severe patients not receiving timely and effective treatment. We hope that these elderly people should take good protection, including the elderly in nursing homes, including the elderly who are bedridden at home with underlying diseases. Everyone should pay special attention to avoid infection. At the same time, those who have not been vaccinated must continue to be vaccinated.
Wang Guiqiang said that during the rapid growth stage of the first round of the epidemic, as time goes by and the number of infections increases, the number of cases will slow down. This is a general rule. But after a period of time, there will be a new round of epidemics during large-scale social activities, including after the Spring Festival or after various social activities are widely carried out. The emergence of such epidemic waves may eventually form a certain herd immunity barrier, and the incidence rate will drop significantly. We hope that the epidemic will not cause a large-scale outbreak. This is our current main suggestion.
How likely is it that people infected with the Omicron strain
will "come back positive"?
A reporter asked: To what extent are people infected with the Omicron strain likely to "relapse"?
Wang Guiqiang, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Peking University First Hospital, said that first of all, "re-positive" should be called re-detection. In fact, the virus and nucleic acids still continue to exist. It is just because of the detection and sampling methods, as well as the intermittency of detoxification, that we have a situation where we are sometimes yang and sometimes yin. So there are many reasons for "Fuyang". The first is testing. When collecting samples, the collection may not be standardized, resulting in false negatives. Another point is that during the recovery period, some nucleic acid fragments may remain in the patient, and the test may also be positive. At present, we use antigen for testing. If the antigen is negative and then the nucleic acid test is positive, this situation is not called "re-positive" because the sensitivity of the antigen test is lower than that of the nucleic acid test . Whether it is "re-positive" or not, the nucleic acid test should be used as the standard.
Of course, sampling is also a very important part of our testing process. For example, the accuracy of using nasopharyngeal swabs is higher, but the oropharynx is less accurate, so it is not surprising that "re-positive" occurs here. From the perspective of the incidence of "re-positive", there have been many studies on the "re-positive rate" of the original strain in the past, with a "re-positive rate" of 5%-15%. At present, there is not much research on the specific data of the "re-positive rate" of the Omicron strain.
We have done a lot of research on the harmfulness and contagiousness of "recovery positive" patients in the past. When virus isolation was performed on all "recovery positive" patients, the virus was not isolated, and no further transmission was seen among "recovery positive" patients. Therefore, we say that the infectivity after "recovery" is extremely low. However, we also emphasize that those who have elderly people at home or around them and those who have returned to positive must also take personal protection to avoid infection by the elderly and other people with underlying diseases.
From the perspective of harmfulness, people who "recover positive" basically have no symptoms and are only nucleic acid positive. Of course, there are also some individuals who will have cough, discomfort, and residual symptoms. Generally speaking, "recovery" is a relatively common situation of new coronavirus infection, and the infectivity is extremely low, so there is no need to panic.
Reprinted from: Press Conference of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council
Source: Beijing Radio and Television Station
