DOCTOR IS IN by Dr. Adil Manzoor OP/ED
I was thinking of a time in the not-so-distant past where all I wrote was about the state of our healthcare system and current health issues in the country. Look at me now – virtually everything I write is about the coronavirus. Virtually everything for about a year now. While that’s sad, what’s sadder is there’s no even end to all of these in sight.
In the first quarter of 2020, the goal was to see out the virus. It’s hilarious to think of now, but there was actually a period last year where many thought we could just sit and wait for the virus to self-destruct.
We moved past that stage real fast, though. I wonder why – maybe the number of bodies piling in hospitals, who knows? Then we moved to the stage of hoping for the vaccine and herd immunity.
The vaccine came through; herd immunity, not so much. Yes, I know what I said. Scientists have reason to doubt herd immunity eventually happening, many thanks to the number of emerging variants that are managing to make a damn mockery of our vaccines.
Mockery may seem a bit harsh, considering how effective the vaccines still are, but if you spend a year and billions of dollars making a vaccine and it takes the virus just a month or two to figure it out, then mockery is the word to use.
One of the characteristics of living things is the ability to adapt to changes over time and evolve to what will give them the best chances of survival. We did the same a long time ago, and the coronavirus is doing the same now.
Compared to the parent strain, these variants are either more transmissible, deadlier, or even both. The vaccines offered protection against earlier strains, but later ones are beginning to ‘learn from the mistakes’ of their earlier relatives. Now, booster doses are looking like they’re going to be requisite before long.
When the variants first became a problem, the WHO grouped them into Variants of Concern and Variants of Interest.
A variant of concern translates to a rise in transmissibility, an increase in fatality and a significant decrease in effectiveness of vaccines, therapy and other health measures. Meanwhile, a variant of interest is one with a genetic capability that affects characteristics of the virus such as disease severity, immune escape, transmissibility and diagnostic escape.
A variant of interest may become a variant of concern upon extensive analysis and it meeting the set criteria. Let me oversimplify this – variants if interest are all variants that are of interest to scientists, while variants of concern are variants to actually be very worried about.
As I speak, the WHO lists the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta strains as the variants of concern. The Eta, Iota, Kappa, and Lambda variants are the variants of interest. Things change fast, though, and these VOIs could become VOCs in no time.
The variants of concern, in particular, have developed ways of evading the protective efforts of the vaccine. And with our luck, I won’t be surprised if the variants of interest follow suit.
This again just emphasizes why we cannot afford to relax in our fight against COVID-19. The virus isn’t resting, and neither should we.
Don’t get it twisted too – the vaccines are still our best weapons in this fight, so please take them.
And don’t neglect COVID safety measures just yet too.
This article was written by Dr. Adil Manzoor DO, a Board Certified Internist & Board Eligible Pediatrician, who works as a Hospitalist, and Emergency Room Physician. He is also the current President of Garden State Street Medicine, a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to provide free preventive and acute urgent care services for the homeless. He is also the co-founder of his own unique medical practice Mobile Medicine NJ.
References
· https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/
· https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/covid-19-variants-of-concern-and-variants-of-interest/article35301681.ece/amp/
· https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/future-perfect/2021/8/25/ 22627918/covid-pandemic-mindset-delta-kids-harm-reduction
