Stakeholders: Many COVID-19 variants, slight differences | News, sports, work

This dateless electron micrograph, made available by the National Institutes of Health in February 2020, shows the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. This virus, also known as 2019-nCoV, causes COVID-19. Samples were isolated from US patients (NIAID-RML via AP)

Wheeling — After the first wave of COVID-19 struck the country, subsequent outbreaks of the virus were identified by the designation of those variant viruses. Most prominent are delta variants such as alpha, gamma, and recently identified mu. Variants pop up from time to time.

But in the end, the myriad mutations in this disease are of great concern to health officials who track the spread of the mutation. For the average person on the street, the main concern is that atypical cases are more contagious, but their symptoms and severity are not so different from baseline illnesses or from each other.

Wheeling-Howard Gamble, director of Ohio County Health, says it’s not uncommon to ask for variants that test positive, but the answer is much different when it comes to prognosis, except for lack of curiosity. Said not.

“Many people who test positive ask the tester …” Was it Delta? “And it doesn’t really affect the disease,” Gambling said. “The symptoms are similar, the disease progression and case management are relatively the same. The only thing it identifies is that you had a variant. And so far. We assume that most, if not all, cases are variants.

… A few months ago, what we saw was mostly COVID. A normal COVID virus, if any, is a variant of that virus.

“That’s why vaccination is still important,” he added.

“You are still vaccinated against the original virus, but there are many variants that go around the community. Against basic COVID because they are difficult, more infectious, and can cause problems. Only need to be vaccinated. “

According to Gambling, the general public is interested in being highly susceptible to infections from variants. Vaccines against COVID-19 have been developed against baseline viruses. It protects against disease and reduces symptoms in all varieties, but it is not tailored to individual strains.

Gambling said the equivalent illness in that regard was the flu. The flu vaccine protects against the most common strains of a particular year, but it means that hundreds of variants of the flu can eventually go past inoculation.

“There are nearly 200 types of influenza virus,” Gambling said. “For each season, we usually have a vaccine composed of some of these types of viruses, but we can’t make a universal vaccine. We have a universal COVID vaccine. No, we have it, and it provides protection against COVID, and for variants, it provides protection against hospitalization and severe illness. Not only reduces hospitalization and death, but also individuals It has also been proven to (affect) the health of the virus. “

Because of this, the vaccine is not specifically tailored to fight the mutant, so the mutant tends to be more contagious than the baseline COVID virus, Gambling said.

Gambling shows the first surge of illness towards the onset of infection in breakthrough cases (vaccinated COVID-positive patients), which gradually diminishes over 10 days and presents with mild symptoms. Said. Among unvaccinated people, gambling instead sees a surge in the same illness, but it maintains its strength for the same 10 days and drifts over time or requires additional treatment, including hospitalization. ..

“Vaccination has advantages whether or not one of the variants was later identified,” he said. “It helps with the data and future vaccine development, but there is no major change in how we treat it, manage it, and track down those illnesses.”

Vaccines may be developed to target specific variants of the disease, but booster shots are not a silver bullet to protect against all variants at once. Gambling said the third dose, which is currently only allowed for immunocompromised individuals, is not a new dose that specifically protects against mutants, but an additional dose of vaccine that is available for several months.

“The word we have is … the booster is the same vaccine that we initially provided in the first two doses,” he said. “As far as we know today, there is no difference. There is time to change that, but it is the same amount and type of vaccine. The booster effect and the initial dose cannot be stored separately. It will be the same. . “

Gambling provides weekly updates on new COVID-19 cases on the County Health Department’s website. It also gives a breakdown of which cases were diagnosed with which variants. As of the Sunday update, Ohio County reported 86 cases of the Alpha variant, also known as the UK variant, 20 cases of the Delta variant, and 2 cases of the Gamma variant.

“Whether it’s vaccine development or what we see across the country, it’s the future of the disease,” Gambling said of mutant tracking. “It was really helpful a few months ago because we can say that the delta is rising and moving in this direction. Many of our positives were normal viruses, so see how it worked. And I was ready.

“… As we move forward as a society over the years to come, vaccines have changed to address perhaps the most predominant mutants, or those that cover all the mutants there. However, there are currently three vaccines in the United States that address the COVID virus. For certain variants, they are still part of the COVID virus family. “