The fifth anniversary of COVID-19. We don’t want to pathetically call it an anniversary, but we have a reason to remember the terrible changes that the coronavirus disease of a planetary scale brought to human life. Someone lost loved ones during these five years, someone still feels the impact of the consequences of covid on health and work capacity. In accordance with the latest WHO report, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, global life expectancy and healthy life expectancy have returned to levels of a decade ago.
When the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020, a wave of anxiety and horror swept through the information space. Then it seemed that there would be no more wars or other conflicts on the globe. After all, humanity has a super-powerful enemy, one against all, a deadly disease that knows no borders. The pandemic was followed by a wave of infodemics that showed how vulnerable we are to misinformation. Even developed countries have demonstrated low medical literacy among ordinary citizens and underdeveloped critical thinking. Influential were the covid dissidents and anti-vaccinators who gathered around themselves supporters of conspiracy theories and ordinary people who are not sensitive to coronavirus fakes.
At the same time, in March 2020, we learned for the first time what a lockdown is and how it is – not leaving the house for weeks, studying and working online. Then mass vaccination began with threats of dismissal from work for those who did not protect themselves from covid. In February 2022, the war pushed him far to the periphery of our experiences and ideas about evil. However, COVID-19 is still with us.
The onset of a disease that resembled inflammation of the lungs
As you know, on December 12, 2019 in the Chinese province of Hubei, in the city of Wuhan, in groups of patients developed symptoms of an unusual pneumonia-like illness that did not respond to standard treatments. Doctors are now recalling how serious the danger humanity faced then, in December 2019, was.
Infographic: IA “FACT”
In the release of the program “Cabinet of experts” infectious disease doctor Olga Golubovska admits: “Neither I nor my colleagues have seen this before. The last time something similar happened during the Spanish flu pandemic that raged in 1918-1919. Then the scale and severity of the disease was even greater, but it is absolutely unacceptable to equate COVID-19 with ordinary SARS. This is a complex, serious and, most importantly, serious disease”.
The doctor emphasizes that COVID-19 is not just a lung disease, as many people think. This is a systemic disease that affects various organs and systems. Before the appearance of the “Omicron” variant, the most severe complications were observed precisely because of its systemic influence. We are still studying this disease, so it is important to understand its complexity.
The health care system was on the verge of collapse
The collapse of the health care system at the beginning of the pandemic, Olga Golubovska recalls, was unprecedented. There was a lack of personnel, equipment, and resources. Let’s remember Italy and Spain – after the same match, which was called a biological bomb, doctors were forced to return pensioners to work, because there were simply not enough hands. And if the doctor is a strategic figure, middle and junior medical staff cannot be dispensed with either. This experience was terrible.
For Olga Golubovska as an infectious disease specialist, COVID-19 was already the second pandemic. The first is the H1N1 flu. But it is impossible to compare influenza and COVID-19, she is convinced. Influenza has a rapid course: in the first five days from the onset of the disease, a person can die. The death rate during the 2009-2010 flu peak was highest among young people aged 25-49. COVID-19 has a different character — its course is longer, the most difficult period falls on the second week. People stay in hospitals for months, which puts a huge strain on the health care system.
What struck Olga Golubovska the most was not the illness itself, but what was happening around her. Politics, populism and the fight for ratings. Very few politicians then really thought about the people.
Is it possible to adapt to COVID-19 and other viruses?
As Olga Golubovska notes, we live in an era of evolution and adaptation. This also applies to pathogens. We put pressure on them with vaccines, antibiotics, antivirals, and they, in turn, adapt. The World Health Organization recently published a report, according to which we have entered the era of viral infections.
Why is it so dangerous? We have almost no specific therapies to fight viruses. Although antibiotics are effective against many bacteria, antiviral drugs with clearly targeted action are scarce.
It is extremely difficult to influence viruses, because they are on the border between living and non-living. The virus activates only in the host’s body. The simpler the organism, the more difficult it is to control. Viruses, although considered inanimate, have an amazing ability to adapt.
In addition to viruses, there are virions – this is genetic material without a shell, which is even more dangerous for humans.
The disease COVID-19 first appeared at the end of 2019. In Ukraine, it began to be identified later, when quarantine restrictions were introduced in the country. The first cases were described as pneumonia.
Classic COVID affects the lungs by two mechanisms. The first is viral, which causes pneumonia of moderate severity. Respiratory failure can sometimes occur, although it is usually not critical. The second phase is more dangerous – immunopathological, known as the cytokine storm. In this phase, not only the lungs are affected, but also the whole body.
Artificial or natural?
As for the origin of the virus, at first, assumptions about its artificial nature were rejected. However, there is now growing evidence that it may have been created in a laboratory.
Interestingly, the medical community often confuses the specialties of microbiologists, virologists, immunologists, epidemiologists, and molecular biologists. As a clinician, I can agree: pathogens that cause such diverse changes in the body hardly occur in nature.
Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier was one of the first to suggest that the virus has an artificial origin. According to him, the research was conducted within the scope of creating vaccines against HIV. Unfortunately, these findings are in good agreement with the clinical picture of COVID-19.
What fatal mistakes were made in the treatment?
Why should antiviral drugs be used in the early stages of the disease, and not in intensive care? This question, as Olga Golubovska admits, was often ignored. It is not necessary to be a great specialist or to graduate from a medical university to understand that the effectiveness of the treatment of viral diseases depends on the stage at which we start the therapy. The principle of any infectious treatment is to prevent the condition when the patient gets to the intensive care unit. The sooner treatment is started, the less resources will be needed to fight the disease.
During the pandemic, various attempts at treatment were observed, and even drugs such as remdesivir entered treatment protocols. Initially, this drug was used according to Chinese standards, but the protocols did not have a sufficient evidence base. Suprun, after assuming the position of minister, eliminated many standards of medical care, focusing on WHO protocols. But they did not include enough evidence for the use of such drugs at the time.
The world at that time began to use the so-called “compassion therapy” – if a doctor believed that a drug, even without an evidence base, could help, he could prescribe it. Ukraine did not have such a mechanism. We only had approved protocols, which made it difficult to make decisions.
A special moment occurred on October 15, when the WHO announced that remdesivir has no effect on mortality and is not recommended for the treatment of COVID-19. However, a week later, on October 22, the FDA in the USA approved it as the first drug for the treatment of coronavirus disease. This changed the situation, because the manufacturers of remdesivir revised the design of their studies and began to use the drug not in intensive care, but in the early stages of the disease, which significantly increased the effectiveness.
Infographic: IA “FACT”
Think, urges Olga Golubovska, how many lives could be saved if this drug was used in the initial stages of the disease, and not when the patients were already in the intensive care unit. This is a question worth answering for those who have not considered these simple principles.
Further difficulties arose due to the use of a new drug, tocilizumab – a trauma agent that is used for immunosuppression. It was also included in the protocols, but not all experts supported its use, believing that it did not give the expected effect.
Recent publications by US professors who have written a book on the COVID-19 pandemic highlight that there has been confusion and frustration in many countries about treatment strategies. They admit that these are not just serious mistakes, but also tragedies, when doctors were not allowed to apply effective treatment methods in severe stages of the disease.
Vaccination is beyond common sense
Olga Golubovska also expressed her point of view on vaccination.
We will remind that at the end of 2020, the first vaccine appeared, it was forcibly imposed on everyone, and those who doubted were discriminated against.
Vaccination, according to the doctor, has always been the best means of preventing diseases, but what happened with the vaccination against the coronavirus had no scientific basis. Compulsory vaccination 28 days after the disease is contrary to common sense. We saw, recalls O. Golubovska, how people who had recently come out of the intensive care unit, crying, went to be vaccinated, although their antibody titer was high enough. But they were not allowed to work without a certificate of vaccination, so they had to do such nonsense.
If a person got sick and did not get sick again, it means that he is immune. Therefore, it makes no sense to vaccinate in such a case. The virus mutates, and new vaccines are not always effective. All these actions looked like a senseless policy, and some doctors did not have the proper training to adequately assess the situation. Unfortunately, this led to tragedies.
