Dr Yong highlights 5 reasons why Covid will become less severe
Expert virologist Dr Yong Poovorawan explained on his Facebook page on Wednesday why the Omicron variant would reduce the severity of the disease.
Yong gave five reasons:
1. The number of infections in children have increased. Most infected children had mild or no symptoms. The severity of the disease will increase according to the patient’s age.
2. Most adults including elders had been administered vaccines.
3. The Omicron variant causes less severe symptoms than Delta according to research especially in South Africa.
4. The research also showed Omicron is usually found in the upper airways than in the lungs.
5. According to Charles Darwin’s theory, living things will adapt to survive. The virus will adapt itself but patients will build immunity. The virus will not cause too much damage though it will be able to live on.
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As an example, Yong wrote, several pandemics were severe at first but then became endemic.
Yong said the number of patients has increased to more than a million per day while the death rate has decreased heavily when compared to the past. Most patients were asymptomatic and may not have been tested.
He speculated that the number of patients would be much more than the World Health Organisation reported and the disease would be less severe after people achieved immunity from infection or vaccines.
Yong added that WHO will stop counting the number of patients and only patients with symptoms will be tested because RT-PCR test prices are quite high.
