Cases of COVID-19 due to the omicron variant have skyrocketed, being the predominant variant today. The rise in infections – and the administrative problems and sick leave that this entails – has caused Spain to reduce the days of isolation due to the disease from 10 to 7, while in the US they reduced it to 5 days, a measure also followed by the United Kingdom in certain cases, however, and according to a study by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases of Japan, the sixth day could be the most contagious of the disease in the case of omicron.
The research, which has been published in The BMJ magazine, has been carried out on 83 respiratory samples from 21 cases of COVID-19 per omicron, and ensures that the amount of viral RNA of the omicron variant is higher between the third and sixth day after diagnosis or onset of symptoms. Therefore, this could indicate that the isolation measures that are currently being taken are inadequate, since people could continue to infect.
Other studies had suggested that the peak transmission period for patients with other variants lasted between two days before symptoms appeared and up to three days afterward, with viral load peaking before symptoms appeared. However, preliminary data from this Japanese research indicates that this peak could be two or three days later.
This could explain the big problem that there has been in recent weeks, and that is that many of the people who have had antigen tests, especially around Christmas and social gatherings, having symptoms compatible with COVID-19 have given negative in the first days, and positive in tests in later days.
In January the omicron peak will be reached in Spain
In Spain, new cases of infections with the omicron variant continue to grow, however, it seems that the pace is beginning to slow down. Last Friday, January 14, the data provided by Health indicated that there were 162,508 new infections, the second highest figure reached in a single day so far in the pandemic. The accumulated incidence in the last two weeks adds 35.83 points since Thursday and marks a new historical maximum, with 3,192.46 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
However, each autonomous community has a different accumulated incidence, and there are already eight that have seen how it has decreased, this is the case of Navarra or the Basque Country with 309 and 101 points less than the previous day. Even so, everything seems to indicate that infections will begin to decline throughout Spain in the coming days.
The results of the Japanese study could explain why many of the antigen tests carried out in the first days of symptoms were negative and later positive.
Before launching the bells on the fly, we will have to wait and be careful, because although it seems that this variant is not as dangerous as other previous ones –since the number of admissions and deaths has not been as high as at the beginning of the pandemic–, half of the provinces of Spain are at very high risk.
So much so that 10 provinces are above 15% hospital occupancy for patients with coronavirus, and the occupancy of Intensive Care Units (ICU) throughout the country is also close to the very high risk level, established in 25 % of beds occupied by patients.
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