"When Immune Evasion Increases by 25%, 10 Million Infected... Doubles at 50% Increase"

Disease Control Headquarters Hosts '2022 Big Data Utilization Symposium for Scientific Quarantine'
Professor Jeong Jae-hoon: "New Variant Wave Expected in 10-14 Weeks"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Young-won] As the immunity of the public against COVID-19 decreases, there is a claim that a resurgence involving up to 20 million people could be triggered.

Professor Jung Jae-hoon of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Gachon University College of Medicine stated at the '2022 Big Data Utilization Symposium for Scientific Quarantine,' hosted by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and the Ministry of Science and ICT, "Considering two scenarios of 25% and 50% immune evasion, assuming 25%, about 10 million people nationwide could be infected, and in the case of 50%, about 20 million people could be infected."

The figures of 25% and 50% apply the degree of increased immune evasion observed during past major variant transitions. Professor Jung explained, "When transitioning from the Alpha variant to the Delta variant, the relative transmissibility (immune evasion) was estimated to be about 25%, and when moving from Delta to Omicron, it was about 50%."

He further argued that the current COVID-19 situation is best described as a 'hyperendemic.' Although it is endemic (periodic outbreaks of infectious diseases), a high level of infection is maintained, and if a new variant emerges, it could shift to an 'epidemic.' An epidemic is the stage just before a pandemic, which is the highest level of infectious disease alert among the six stages set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Regarding future infection predictions, he said, "Since the time interval for major variant changes worldwide has been 10 to 14 weeks, I expect that 10 to 14 weeks after BA.2 became dominant three weeks ago, another variant will become the dominant strain."

As countermeasures against new variants, Professor Jung emphasized that updated vaccines and stockpiling oral therapeutics are the highest priorities. Regarding the government's quarantine policies and other 'non-pharmaceutical interventions,' he argued that rapid evaluation of previous policies is necessary to prepare for the next variant. Professor Jung said, "We need to evaluate what effects the policies applied in the past had and what costs were paid for those effects, and there is not much time left. The evaluation must be completed before the next variant arrives to determine whether the outbreak can be controlled with oral therapeutics alone."

At the symposium, projections were also made that a resurgence could occur between November and early next year depending on vaccination scenarios. Professor Jung Eun-ok's team from the Department of Mathematics at Konkuk University presented four scenarios, ranging from a fourth dose before the resurgence begins to vaccination of those aged 60 and over and all age groups, predicting that cumulative deaths during this period could range from a minimum of 700 to a maximum of 2,700.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.