By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — With each new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, the disease has become more transmissible.
A third variant of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is now taking off, said Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services Bureau of Communicable Diseases, at a media briefing held on Zoom May 26.
Each new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, both Delta and the multiple Omicrons variants, out-compete the previous variant for community spread, he said.
In the past few weeks, there has been a steady statewide increase in COVID-19 cases, although the “wave” is smaller than the surge of cases seen in January, Dr. Westergaard said.
The hope is that the current increase in cases will not be as severe as earlier surges, but people should still consider being cautious, he said.
As past experience has shown, holiday weekends pose risks for transmission of the disease, Dr. Westergaard said.
People should keep in mind the strategies for gathering safely. Being outdoors is preferable to being indoors, and if people are in an area with high transmission, then they should consider wearing masks indoors, he said.
Increased illness
A reporter from WTAQ in Green Bay asked about the DHS analysis of data related to confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 which shows that people who are vaccinated have twice the number of confirmed and probable cases than the unvaccinated.
The numbers do seem counterintuitive, Dr. Westergaard said.
In a randomized analysis, rather than looking at only confirmed and probable cases, the risk of illness is less among the vaccinated, he said.
It is also possible that people who have been vaccinated and who have gotten boosters are more likely to get tested when they have symptoms, Dr. Westergaard said.
Who gets exposed and who gets tested would affect the numbers, he said.
Seven times
As the virus has evolved, the percentage of effectiveness for the vaccines to prevent all infections has decreased, Dr. Westergaard said.
Be that as it may, the unvaccinated are still seven times more likely to die from SARS-CoV-2 than the vaccinated, he said.
The vaccines are still protective against severe illness and death, Dr. Westergaard said.
Managing risk
At this point, there is nothing that can be done to make the virus go away, so now it is a matter of managing and mitigating risk, Dr. Westergaard said.
In the way that sunscreen mitigates risk for skin cancer, people have to manage and mitigate their risk for COVID-19, he said.
People can minimize their exposure to the virus by being with groups of people outdoors or by wearing a mask indoors in high transmission areas, Dr. Westergaard said.
The best way to keep from getting very sick is to be vaccinated, he said.
For people who have risk factors that could make them more susceptible to severe illness, antiviral medications will help, Dr. Westergaard said, noting that Paxlovid is the best of the SARS-CoV-2 antiviral medications.
People should also pay attention to areas where there is high transmission of the virus, he said, adding that different people have different risk tolerance.
Testing
Another reporter asked whether less testing means that the data is less informative.
There is still quite a lot of testing being done, and more people are doing the home tests, although the results of the home tests are not reported to the DHS, Dr. Westergaard said.
The numbers of confirmed and probable cases do not reflect the true number of infections, he said.
In the last two years, however, good systems for tracking the virus over time have been developed, such as assessing the number of people who are hospitalized and analysis of wastewater, Dr. Westergaard said.
Pandemic vs. endemic
In response to a question about determining whether the current COVID-19 situation is pandemic or endemic, Dr. Westergaard said he did not have a good answer.
Asking the question of multiple epidemiologists would probably result in multiple answers, he said.
Right now, it still feels like we are in a pandemic because the virus keeps evolving and changing, Dr. Westergaard said.
Cases are on the upswing, and the virus could evolve so that there is another variant more transmissible or more capable of producing severe illness than the Delta or Omicron variants, he said.
The outbreaks of COVID-19 will be sporadic and unpredictable, Dr. Westergaard said.
People must be aware of the risk and prepare for changes in the virus and for new variants to come along, he said.
People can wear masks at any time to reduce their risk of COVID-19 or influenza, Dr. Westergaard pointed out.
Antivirals
Many people have some level of protection against COVID-19, either through vaccinations or past infections, so the risk of severe disease is lower than in the past, Dr. Westergaard said.
When the pandemic first started, no one had any protective antibodies, and the vaccines were not available yet, he said.
Resources, such as the antiviral medications, are available now to keep people out of the Intensive Care Unit, Dr. Westergaard said.
The antiviral medications are not scarce, and there is no shortage, he said.
While the antivirals are not available at every pharmacy, they are available in all areas of the state. Eventually it will become common practice to prescribe the antiviral medications for COVID-19 after people test positive, Dr. Westergaard said.
