Sars-Cov-2 is not Gone and Will Not Go Away Volume 58- Issue 5

Darner A Mora Alvarado*

• Clinical Chemical Microbiology, Mater en Salud Public, Costa Rica

Received: September 13, 2024; Published: September 24, 2024

*Corresponding author: Darner A Mora Alvarado, Clinical Chemical Microbiology, Mater en Salud Public, Costa Rica

DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2024.58.009211

Abstract PDF

With the appearance of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, at the end of November 2021 in South Africa, I dared to indicate in one of my writings that this variant would be the beginning of the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, in another article written on January 10, 2022, I indicated that the pandemic would become endemic and that the virus will continue to cause outbreaks in different latitudes of the world, also in December 2022, I anticipated that the end of the pandemic occurred with the media displacement of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 22, 2022; which put the information on the Covid-19 pandemic in the background (Figure 1). Then, the World Health Organization (WHO) on May 5, 2023, declared the end of the public health emergency and with it the end of the pandemic; however, he clarified that “this does not mean that Covid-19 will continue to be a threat to public health,” which “implies that it is time for countries to move from emergency mode to the management and center of Covid-19 with other infectious diseases” (Figure 2).

Figure 1

Figure 2

In these weeks of August 2024, in different areas of Mexico, until August 12, the cumulative positivity with preliminary data by laboratory was 17%, at its peak 2 weeks ago, a positivity of 36% was presented, a high value, although fewer numbers compared to previous years, but higher than this year’s average. where in Mexico City, positive cases were presented with 24.4%, Nuevo León (8.8%), State of Mexico (7.9%) and Puebla (4.0%), contributed the states with the most cases. In our country Costa Rica, hospitals have had more than 100 hospitalized for Covid-19 for 4 weeks: 107 were located in the ward and 6 patients in Intensive Care Units (ICU). These figures exceed 100 people per week on average. Costa Rica had not reported figures above 100 since April 2023 (Figure 3). In Epidemiological Bulletin No. 32 of 2024, the Directorate of Health Surveillance (August 23, 2024), on page 27, graph 18, presents the cases of Covid-19, according to epidemiological week of the year 2023-2024 (Figure 4).

Figure 3

Figure 4

The JN.1 subvariant of Omicron continues to be the most prevalent with 65.22%. These results corroborated what was predicted in 2022, that the pandemic would become endemic, with outbreaks and fewer deaths, but we must be careful and not underestimate, maintaining the vaccination schedule and, above all, try to wash hands with drinking water and soap, in addition to avoiding conglomerations or meetings behind closed doors.