A new wave of infections fueled by the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 of SARS-CoV-2 might occur in the second half of next month, but people should not worry, as an “immunity firewall” has been built in the nation, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health professor Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said yesterday.
Chen made the remarks at a news conference held by NTU Hospital, along with hospital vice superintendent Kao Jia-horng (高嘉宏), about new disease prevention strategies in the face of the new subvariants.
Kao said reported cases of BA.4 and BA.5 are increasing in neighboring countries, including South Korea, Singapore and Japan, and a wave of infections is expected to occur in Taiwan soon.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
As the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Monday reported a locally acquired BA.5 case — a shipyard worker in Kaohsiung — Kao said the possible workplace cluster has to be closely monitored to prevent wider community spread.
Chen said BA.4 and BA.5 cases make up about 70 percent of new COVID-19 infections in many countries, but they account for less than 20 percent of the cases in Taiwan.
“Only when they account for more than half of the new local infections will they cause a more significant impact, and that is expected to fall between Aug. 15 and the end of August,” he said.
Simulations conducted using data from other countries suggest that, on average, it takes 26 days for the percentage of BA.4 and BA.5 cases to increase from 20 to 40 percent, and 11 more days to reach 60 percent — a total of 37 days, he said.
Taiwan’s current Omicron outbreak, caused by the BA.2 subvariant, is slowing down and the daily caseload is expected to fall below 10,000 next month, Chen said.
If the BA.5 subvariant causes a new wave of infections, the daily caseload might increase again to about 30,000, he said.
However, as Taiwan has just recently experienced a wide outbreak and the vaccine booster coverage has exceeded 70 percent, which helped build an “immunity firewall,” a wave of BA.5 infections would be less likely to cause a wide-scale outbreak, Chen said, adding that the majority of cases would again be mild or asymptomatic.
Disease prevention strategies should be revised to adapt to new situations, he said.
He suggested continuing to fortify the immunity firewall in local communities, administering vaccine boosters and developing next-generation vaccines, and monitoring new subvariants and cross-protective immunity against them.
The government can also consider gradually reopening the nation’s borders to keep up with other countries, as many foreigners have gained infection-induced or vaccine-induced immunity.
As of yesterday, first and second-dose vaccination coverage in Taiwan had reached 91.7 percent and 85.7 percent respectively, and the first and second booster vaccination rates had reached 71.2 percent and 6.2 percent respectively, the CECC said.
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