Now, it’s less likely than someone who hasn’t, but it’s certainly possible and we do see those reinfections. So, even if you if you got the BA.1 or BA.2 - those were as recent as January or March or April - you could get re-infected with the BA.4 and BA.5. So, the reason why these subvariants exist is because they found a way to get past the previous immunity that you’ve had. I mean, what are we learning about how quickly people can be re-infected, especially by one of these new variants? Miller: But not necessarily likely that you’re not going to get sick at all. And those have helped, and we do see pretty good evidence now that as that builds up over time, your body tends to remember it, making it less likely that you get very sick. And when we see that we say, well, if you’re looking at vaccines versus prior infection, you’re going to want to get your vaccines in as being your immunity builder. You might feel a little something the next day, but for the most part, you’re not going to get that illness where I think if you talk to people, you’ll hear that some people really are going to be sick for a number of days, maybe even up to the full 10 days that they indicate you could be sick for. Now of course, I think we all know that the vaccine version is going to be easier to take. When we talk about immunity, it’s from either one - prior infection or vaccine. Miller: Whether from prior infection or from vaccination and boosters? We really have built up some immunity to those most severe outcomes that we’ve been trying to avoid. So when we look at those rates, we say, Well, actually with a really high infection level, we’re seeing not as many people needing the hospital urgently for COVID, which is probably the silver lining in this. What does that mean? That means you’re there for a broken leg or some other procedure where you happen to have COVID, but that may not be the main reason you were there. And again, within that, there’s a good share that are going to be incidental. That’s continued, and indeed while we’re having very high infection levels, I’m expecting our hospital census to only get up about half as high as it did in January. We’re seeing less severity and more incidental hospitalizations across the state. Graven: Here’s where we’ve seen a real change, and it started with the wave that began in January. Miller: What are you expecting to see in terms of hospitalizations, which for a long time was the most serious and important single number in terms of how as a society we are weathering any particular outbreak? We think those infection levels are really quite high right now. So, if you’re if you’re hearing a lot of people around you look like they’re getting BA.4 and BA.5, which they won’t know, but they’ll have COVID, it’s true. And that’s a similar level as we had before. While we know we’re not catching all the cases, the infections that are out there we think are as high as 6% of the population. That’s what you’re expecting in the coming weeks? Miller: Meaning as high as we’ve had in this entire pandemic. And while the case counts may seem a little bit lower this time - you may be seeing them around 1,700 a day - the infection levels that both the model is thinking and what we’re seeing in the wastewater are back up to those same levels we had back in January during the BA.1 subvariant wave. We are back to really high infection levels. But looking over your latest forecast, it seems like you’re predicting a similar spike later this month. The following transcript has been edited for clarity.ĭave Miller: The most dramatic spike in cases we saw in Oregon was around mid-January when omicron first took off here. Graven joined OPB’s “Think Out Loud” to talk about his latest forecast. Graven’s forecast indicates that infection levels will likely be similar to what Oregon experienced with the first omicron wave in January. They’re also very good at evading immunity from vaccines and prior infections. The current surge is driven by the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, which are the most transmissible of the COVID-19 variants thus far in the pandemic. That’s according to Oregon Health & Science University data scientist Peter Graven. Oregon will continue to see a rise in COVID-19 cases, along with hospitalizations and deaths, over the next few weeks.
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