Omicron is more vulnerable to children's vaccine to prevent severe disease still effective

In just two days, Omicron has spread across the two mainland provinces, and the transmission chain has reached dozens of people

Omicron more vulnerable to children

According to the National Health Commission, on January 9, 97 new confirmed cases were reported in China (60 in Henan, including 24 in Zhengzhou, 21 in Xuchang, 15 in Anyang, and 21 in Tianjin, all in Jinnan District).

On January 8, 2022, Anyang City, Henan Province screened 2 positive cases of local new coronavirus nucleic acid among the active testing population

On January 9, the whole genome sequencing of the virus in the laboratory of the Henan Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the two local cases were infected with the BA.

Combined with the results of epidemiological investigation and gene sequencing, the source of infection of this outbreak in Anyang City is basically identified as a college student who returned to Tangyin County, Anyang City from Jinnan District, Tianjin City on December 28, 2021

This also means that the time of Omicron's hidden transmission in Tianjin has been advanced to December 28, 2021, which has been 14 days so far, and involves many schools in Tianjin and Anyang, Henan

It is reported that among the 40 local confirmed cases and positive infections of the new coronavirus announced by Tianjin, 23 are primary and secondary school students

Zhang Boli, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that the Tianjin epidemic was manifested by a relatively high proportion of primary and secondary school students and other young infected groups.

"The first two local confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, one was a staff member of a nursery institution, and the other was a primary school student.

"From the current epidemic investigation in Tianjin, it is found that the Omicron variant strain infection has a clear trend of younger age.

According to reports, Audrey John, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, said that the infection process of Omicron may have a greater impact on children

Where is the source of infection?

In just two days, Omicron has formed a certain scale of transmission.

It is worth noting that Tianjin is not the first time that Omic cases have appeared

However, Tianjin has confirmed that this time and the sequence of the variant strain of Omicron from overseas imported cases that have been found in Tianjin cannot be confirmed as the same transmission chain

According to Yicai statistics, as of now, imported cases of Omicron have been found in Tianjin, Guangzhou, Changsha, Shenzhen, and Zhejiang.

At about 1:00 a.

Yesterday, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that previous data showed that the main cause of Omicron is asymptomatic or mild infection.
Wu Zunyou said that this needs further observation, but he personally believes that, This is the difficulty of this epidemic prevention and control
.

"Mild symptoms make the virus very hidden and difficult to identify
.
There are more patients with mild symptoms staying at home and spreading it in the family.
Only when severe patients appear will they go to the doctor and be discovered.
At this time, a large number of people have been infected.
That's the scariest thing, so mild illness isn't necessarily a good thing
.
"

Although the Tianjin epidemic was only discovered this time, the Tianjin Center for Disease Control and Prevention has judged that it may have been spreading in the community for a period of time, which is validating Wu Zunyou's point of view
.

According to the People’s Daily Online, according to Baidu’s migration map, during the seven days from January 1st to January 7th, the main destinations of Tianjin’s emigrated population were mainly concentrated in Beijing, Langfang City, Hebei Province, Tangshan City, etc.
In addition to January 1st and January 2nd, Beijing has the highest proportion of relocation places, and according to the reporter's statistics, the top five cities in Tianjin's relocation places are basically concentrated in Langfang City, Hebei Province, Tangshan City, Cangzhou City and Baoding City
.

In terms of provinces and cities, the main destinations of Tianjin's relocation are still concentrated in Beijing and Hebei Province, in addition to Dezhou and Jinan in Shandong Province
.

Vaccines are still effective in preventing severe illness

"However, extremes turn out to be the opposite.
A variant of the new coronavirus has appeared in Omicron.
Although the infectivity has increased, many overseas clinical observation and studies have shown that its toxicity tends to weaken, with many asymptomatic patients, mild lung damage, and severe patients.
Less waiting, of course we are closely observing and summarizing the situation in Tianjin
.
" Academician Zhang Boli said
.

Zhang Boli pointed out that although the protective power of vaccines has declined, it is still effective in preventing severe illness
.
With the advancement of the national new crown vaccination work, most people in the country have been vaccinated twice.
The data shows that the vaccination rate of Xi'an and Zhengzhou exceeds 95%, but there are still local epidemics.
Immune escape phenomenon
.

The current research results show that the vaccine is still very effective in preventing severe disease and mortality, and the effective rate can reach 80% to 90%
.
Therefore, it is still necessary to strengthen the vaccination and improve the vaccine coverage
.
"If there are no special circumstances, the public should get a booster shot of the vaccine as soon as possible
.
"

Wu Zunyou said: "Omicron makes the vaccine effect discount greater than that of other mutant strains, so a booster shot is especially needed
.
"

Many people are particularly concerned about whether the existing vaccines in our country are effective against Omicron
.
Wu Zunyou explained that more than 30 mutations of Omicron mainly occur in the spike protein, of which 15 are located in the receptor binding domain of the human body.
How much? What is the impact on which vaccine? It is not clear yet
.
But one thing is clear, since the mutation of Omicron mainly occurs in the part of the spike protein, it will definitely affect the vaccine that uses the spike protein as a strategy.
It has a large impact on inactivated vaccines, and the impact will not be too great
.
"

He further used data to show that China's inactivated vaccine has a protective effect of 65% on the new crown, 87.
5% of the protective effect of hospitalization, 90% of the protection rate of ICU admission, and 86.
3% of death protection
.

"It is very, very difficult to obtain such good results in the real world, which shows that our inactivated vaccine is very effective in the fight against new coronary pneumonia
.
"

"My personal recommendation is that everyone needs to be vaccinated, not 90% is enough, everyone needs to be vaccinated, and everyone needs a booster shot
.
"

Wu Zunyou appealed that although the constant mutation of the new coronavirus has reduced herd immunity, we can counter-discount, "What is anti-discount? We found that after the booster shot, the antibody quickly rose, and the protective effect of preventing infection returned to expectations.
80%, 90%, so we have to reverse the discount, everyone will be vaccinated, and everyone will be given booster shots, so that we can fold back part of the discount caused by the new crown virus on herd immunity, which can improve the effectiveness of the crowd in fighting against the new crown epidemic.

.
"

At present, the antibody titer is found to rise rapidly after the booster shot of the inactivated vaccine and remains at a high level
.
Both the young and the elderly over 60 showed the preventive effect of booster needles, the results just published in the December issue of The Lancet's Journal of Infectious Diseases
.
The results showed that boosting against the mutant strain or Delta was very effective
.

(Original abridged)