In Russia, for the first time since January, more than 25 thousand cases of COVID-19 were detected per day
Over the past day in Russia, the number of patients with COVID-19 increased by 25,142 (this is the maximum figure since January), the headquarters said. The growth rate of new cases is 0.45% – on the eve of the coronavirus was diagnosed a little less than 24.5 thousand Russians.
The number of deaths at the same time decreased to 663 people, which is 34 deaths less than the record for the entire pandemic from yesterday. In a week, a total of 4,643 people died from coronavirus in the country, thereby updating the maximum since the beginning of the pandemic.
Moscow remains the leader in new cases of the disease (7624 people), followed by the Moscow region (2696) and St. Petersburg (1784).
Symptoms change
With the advent of the “delta” strain, scientists have come to the conclusion that the Indian mutation of the coronavirus not only differs in its viral properties from the “original” Wuhan version of COVID-19, but also changes the human perception of the virus. Pulmonologist Aleksey Nikishenkov stated that the majority of Russians who became infected in recent months (more than 90% – just “delta”) were characterized by symptoms associated with disruption of the gastrointestinal tract.
“Usually we do not know what strain we have in front of us, because in our routine practice we do not conduct research on the coronavirus subspecies. But I can note that coronavirus patients are increasingly complaining of an upset gastrointestinal tract,” the TASS physician quotes.
So, according to him, the symptoms of such patients are expressed in abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea and diarrhea, while the previous symptoms – weakness and cough – remained. That is, the course of the disease now looks more like poisoning.
Changing symptoms of COVID-19 complicates its diagnosis, as previously mentioned by the Deputy Mayor of Moscow Anastasia Rakova. Including for this reason, in the capital, all patients with ARVI symptoms who seek help are temporarily transferred to the status of covid infected and undertake isolation until the results of the antigen test.
Infectious disease doctor Yevgeny Timakov, for his part, agreed that now the main symptoms of COVID are runny nose, sore throat and intestinal disorders, but loss of smell is becoming less common – another factor why coronavirus has become harder to detect. “The virus mutated in such a way that it began to disguise itself as a seasonal viral infection,” RIA Novosti quotes him.
The opinion of Russian doctors is confirmed by the conclusions of foreign scientists. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has added nausea, vomiting and diarrhea to the updated list of COVID-19 symptoms, and the UK's ZOE app now includes fever, sore muscles and sore throat as its predominant symptoms, highlighting the loss of taste and smell ( the main symptoms of coronavirus in the first peaks of the pandemic) are now only in ninth place in terms of prevalence.
“COVID is acting differently now. It's more like a severe cold among the young population, people do not realize it, and this is not mentioned in any government information,” Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London, told the ZOE YouTube briefing. …
The health Site also adds that the symptoms of COVID-19 are similar to those of gastroenteritis and stomach flu. During self-diagnosis, it should be borne in mind that when infected with SARS-CoV-2, “traditional” symptoms of coronavirus associated with the effect on the respiratory system are added.
What is the reason
Experts call the appearance of new symptoms normal, since the virus by its nature is programmed to mutate into new strains. There are more than a dozen varieties of SARS-CoV-2, and only a few of them cause concern, “delta” is among them.
There is no exact data on why the symptoms changed so dramatically when infected with “delta”, since the strain appeared relatively recently and is still being studied. However, doctors identify several factors.
First, these are the direct viral properties of a particular mutation. For the most part, these are the speed of propagation and replication. “Delta” is notable for the fact that it occupies a dominant status in the world in terms of the rate of infection. Experts cautiously say the same about the “delta-plus”, which, however, has so far been recorded in isolated cases, but the potential, according to various estimates, is no less serious.
Secondly, the so-called “host factors” can also influence the symptomatology. It takes into account the sex, age, history and lifestyle of the infected person. But, since “delta” is not the original type of the strain, then, with a high degree of probability, the spectrum of symptoms has changed in the course of mutation.
In turn, The Times of India, with reference to its experts, emphasizes that an option remains possible in which the symptoms have changed due to vaccination. If earlier the main group of the infected, especially those with a severe course of the disease, was the elderly category of citizens, now there are more and more young and unvaccinated people among those infected. In their case, the symptoms of the common summer cold are characteristic.
Effectiveness of vaccines
There are various assumptions about whether existing drugs are capable of withstanding new strains like “delta”.
The stages of vaccination in Russia have shown that the Indian strain overcomes the protection created by antibodies much easier, and thus a person usually needs more antibodies to neutralize it than in the case of the Wuhan variety. The developer of the Sputnik V vaccine also confirms that the effectiveness of the vaccines against the “delta” is lower: in the case of their drug, it dropped to 90%. Denis Logunov, a representative of the Gamaleya Center, admitted in an interview with Interfax that the conditions for the evolution of the virus were created by a “huge buffer zone” due to the large number of unvaccinated people.
As for the reasons for the refusal of the vaccine, then, as the doctor and TV presenter Alexander Myasnikov wrote in his Telegram channel, despite the widespread myth, the drugs do not cause “an increase in the infection.” In his opinion, such information is disseminated from “medical circles”.
The need for immunization is noted by most specialists – even if a vaccinated person gets sick, he will most likely endure the disease more easily. The effectiveness of foreign vaccines against “delta” has not been studied, but, according to already available research information, the drugs Covaxin, Covishield and Pfizer / BioNTech show positive results.
