Experts doubt the likelihood of a sixth wave of COVID-19 in the summer

The likelihood of a new strain of coronavirus emerging and a surge in the incidence in June should not be considered as high, since Omicron continues to crowd out other strains and is dominant. Sergey Voznesensky, Associate Professor of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the People’s Friendship University of Russia, told RBC about this.

“All such mathematical models should be taken hypothetically. The model is based on the patterns that have been, but it cannot always take into account the patterns that will appear, I mean the emergence of new strains, their aggressiveness, their antigenic variability, and how the human immune system will react to this. The fact that everything will not end on the “omicron” – this point of view has the right to exist, in each new case of the disease we have new generations of viruses that are somehow different from the previous ones. But this won’t happen anytime soon. [Новая волна возможна — РБК.] with the advent of a new strain that will be more aggressive than it is today,” Voznesensky explained.

New strains of coronavirus infection will continue to appear, but it is difficult to predict exactly when this will happen, says Larisa Popovich, director of the Institute for Health Economics at the Higher School of Economics. At the same time, she stressed that it is extremely difficult to model the behavior of coronavirus.

“I would treat mathematical models calmly and with a certain amount of skepticism. I do not undertake to predict what will happen in the summer. Whether this will be the sixth wave and whether it is possible to predict the development of the epidemic process with such accuracy – time will tell, I do not think that one should guess and take forecasts seriously. What viruses will circulate, what mutations will be – it’s not exactly mathematical models that predict this, these are random processes. Undoubtedly, there will be new strains. You just need to understand that we live in a fairly aggressive environment of the microworld. And the only fight against it is our immune system, its strengthening, hygiene measures, ”she explained.

Over the past day, 180 thousand cases of COVID have been detected in Russia, 790 people have died, which was the maximum since January 8, when 796 people died.

In early February, Natalya Pshenichnaya, deputy director for clinical and analytical work of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor, did not rule out the possibility of a new strain of coronavirus. She noted that the most likely scenario is that the virus becomes more contagious but less dangerous. Then existing measures will be sufficient to combat it.