A new line of coronavirus with an unprecedented lethality called Iota is reported by the media. According to published data, “Iota” kills 82% of those infected from older age groups. Panic is brewing among the population – there has never been a strain with such a high mortality rate. The MK observer understood the situation.
In fact, the line of strains of the new Iota coronavirus is absolutely not new. It was allocated back in November 2020 in the United States and identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the list of “of interest”.
There is another list – “causing concern”, but “Iota” was not included in it, which is already good news. Today the Iota variant has been found in at least 27 countries.
Iota attracted unexpected attention to itself, thanks to a new scientific work (more precisely, an undertaking), published on the website medrxiv.org. The goal of the team of scientists was to study the epidemiological properties of variant B.1.526 (aka Iota) due to the fact that due to the lack of extensive genomic sequencing and contact tracing data, its key characteristics were not known.
Scientists, based on the available scientific publications, carried out complex simulations to assess infectiousness and mortality and came to the conclusion: the Iota line can increase the mortality rate from COVID-19 by 62-82% among the elderly, compared with the original Wuhan version of the coronavirus.
Most of all, “Iota” turned out to be similar to the “Alpha” variant (according to the WHO classification, it is on the list of causes of concern). At the same time, there is reason to believe that Iota should spread faster and be more resistant to the immune defense of those who have had the Wuhan strain.
And yet, an epidemiological study using data on individual patients from January 1 to April 5, 2021 showed no increase in the frequency of secondary infection among contacts of Iota patients.
The same study showed that, most likely, the B.1.526 line does not increase the risk of hospitalization or death, as well as a breakthrough in reducing the effectiveness of vaccination. Scientists conclude that new variants of SARS-CoV-2 can increase the lethality of the virus, its ability to bypass the immunity developed by other strains and increase the severity of the disease. Therefore, you need to continue monitoring the strains.
Where, then, did the media get information about the new super-lethal “Iota”? As the experts explained, this horror story is nothing more than translation difficulties.
“Iota, apparently, is really distinguished by increased mortality, but, of course, it is not 82%,” molecular biologist Yevgeny Poltavsky told the MK columnist. – The English-language publication indicates an increase in mortality “by 62-82%”, and not “up to 62-82%”. However, information has scattered across the networks and in the media, with which people nightmare each other, about an unprecedentedly high mortality rate as a result of infection with this strain. The article on medrxiv that started the whole fuss is just a retrospective analysis of the situation in New York from October to April. It’s just that one of the journalists stared at the eerie “mortality rate of 82%” – and away we go. Although the article itself only says that with the Iota variant, the mortality rate in the 65-74 age group is expected to increase by 82%. That is, it is not 1%, as for the “wild option”, but 1.9%. In addition, now almost everywhere the more infectious “Delta” “Iota” has successfully ousted. In general, everything is as usual – “a scientist raped a journalist.” And don’t forget that WHO characterizes Iota as an option of interest, not a concern.
The head of the department of somnology at the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA) of Russia Alexander Melnikov also gave explanations to the current situation on the social network: “Today we need to filter the incoming information. I (I think, not only me), at first, was also stunned by the headline “A strain of coronavirus was detected in the USA with a mortality rate of about 82%.” If anyone does not know, mortality is the ratio of the number of deaths to the number of cases. That is, with a lethality, 82% of 100 cases, 82 will die. Given that, according to generally accepted estimates, the mortality rate of COVID-19 is now 0.5-1.5%. And then 82% … And even with reference to a certain chief freelance specialist of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation for medical prevention of the Ural Federal District, Doctor of Medical Sciences Sergei Tokarev, who allegedly said literally the following: “A new strain of Iota has been identified in New York. It gives a mortality rate of up to 82%, especially in the age range over 45, and is transmitted 25% faster than other mutations. “
But we are talking about something completely different: not about the mortality rate of 82%, but about an increase (!) Of mortality by 82%, which in general gives a mortality rate of no more than 3%. Not very good either, but nowhere near that creepy.
All the details are clear from the preprint of the article by American authors published in medRxiv. The Iota variant is now the predominant strain in New York and was not previously thought to increase hospital admissions or deaths, reduce vaccine susceptibility, or increase re-infection rates.
Actually, the new article refutes these conclusions based on certain mathematical models. Iota does increase mortality in patients over 45 years old – by 46% at the age of 45-64 years, by 82% (65-74 years old) and 62% (75 years old and older). In reality, there may be less or more; this is just an average figure. The transmissibility (infectivity) of this strain can be 15-25% higher than that of other strains circulating in New York. The likelihood of getting sick again is 0-10% higher (that is, perhaps not higher than being re-infected with other strains). The Iota variant does not present any global threat yet ”.
In the meantime, alas, this cannot be said about Delta. The director of the Oxford vaccine development group, Professor Andrew Pollard, made an official statement that the Delta coronavirus line makes it impossible for the population to form herd immunity. According to him, those who have not been vaccinated will sooner or later encounter the virus; there is no means to completely stop its transmission. At the same time, he noted that there is no reason for panic at the moment, since the existing vaccines, although they do not save from infection, are very effective means of protection against the severe course of COVID-19. A recent study from Imperial College London suggests that fully vaccinated people aged 18-64 are 49 percent less likely to be at risk of contracting coronavirus than unvaccinated people.
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