Whatever they say covid-19 is not over. The data we were looking at proved it and those of this week highlight it. Although the new epidemiological surveillance system, which should give us the image of the pandemic at all times, it is not yet fully operational, we know that infections are around 1,500 daily, that the Rt is once again above 1, which shows that the epidemic is active, and the risk of regrowth rises againr. Also the hospitalizations, the only reliable data at the present time, they are rising, although it is true that ICU admissions are not, for now. We’ll see in a few days. And not only here, but throughout Europe. And let’s not talk about China.
In the present moment Almost all the protection measures against the virus are already lifted. There is no longer contact tracing. There is no quarantine anymore. Out of capacity, restrictions and masks. Between us and the virus there is only immunity, either by vaccination, or by infection. And the rates of vaccination, when the sense of alarm disappears when talking about ‘flu’, have dropped notably, as well as lowers its effectiveness after months of the last dose. We have high levels of infection, although its severity is not as high as in previous waves. However, we must remember the reflection of a great English epidemiologist, Geoffrey Rose: “A large number of people exposed to low risk can generate more cases than a low number of people exposed to high risk.”
The truth is that a hardly sustainable situation. Epidemic fatigue and the state of the economy, especially in countries as dependent on tourism as ours, together with the messages, perhaps, too optimistic Based on a decrease in the severity and mortality of covid in a post-vaccine world, they made the population less and less accepting of restrictive measures. The mobilizations in various parts of the world demonstrated it. Primary care, like hospitals before, was overwhelmed and exhausted by the demand for care derived from the pandemic. The social situation was serious. Something had to be done. The perception of risk by the population had to be modified.
The concept of risk is actually an approximation of the probability that a hazard will actually affect us. But there are a number of factors that can cause this risk to be perceived more or less seriously by the population. And the perception of risk can be managed. And risk communication is essential in that regard.
Factors such as the scope of the disease and its severity, the existence or not of tools to combat it, familiarity with the epidemic, the feeling of control or the threat of the crisis and, above all, its presence in the media, are essential levers for this risk perception management. When we are told that the pandemic is on the wane, that it is already “like the flu”, that vaccination protects us to such an extent that administrations lift measures, the perception of risk is being lowered. When this information almost disappears from the media, when the daily “casualty report” no longer comes out, because we no longer do the daily monitoring of the incidence and we have significantly decreased the practice of PCR that allows us to detect asymptomatic patients with the capacity to infect to other people, and the alarmist statements of experts and the like disappear, when in the gatherings the subject is no longer covid, all this makes people lose the fear They feel safer. This is living with the virus. The risk persists, but it no longer seems so dangerous to us.
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I don’t want to be misunderstood. I am not talking about sinister offices that generate and manipulate our perception of risk. I’m talking about the need to take into account other visions than the purely epidemiological ones. I am saying that the pandemic has been serious and still has dangers, but that other real dangers, such as social confrontation and the economic crisis, are as important as epidemiology. Nobody wants to cheat us. Everything we are told is true. But you need to see the whole movie to understand it.
We are certainly better than in previous waves. Certainly this is not over.