Portugal: 20% of all Covid-19 pandemic infections have occurred since BA.5 was first reported
The almost 990,000 confirmed cases in April and May 2022 represent 21% of infections since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, while the 1,455 deaths constitute about 6% of total deaths.
In the last two months, the country has entered the sixth wave of the pandemic, recording, according to data from the Directorate-General for Health (DGS), a total of 988,307 cases: 288,059 in April and 700,248 in May, which means 21% of the infections notified by Portugal to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Over 20% of all Covid-19 infections have occurred since April 2022 in Portugal, following the arrival of BA.5:
Covid hospital patient numbers in Portugal levelled off in March 2022 and then started rapidly increasing again in mid-April 2022:
There was a noticeable change in Covid-19 deaths in Portugal at the end of March 2022:
CovSpectrum is showing BA.5 represents nearly 70% of all SARS-CoV-2 samples recently sequenced in Portugal
BA.5 started to increase in Portugal in early April 2022
BA.5 is looking like the SARS-CoV-2 subvariant that could displace BA.2
Looking at Raj Rajnarayanan’s BA.5 tracker, you can see that there are other countries have a growing B.5 problem, namely the UK, USA, Germany, Denmark, Austria and Israel:
“The BA.5 subvariant’s share of cases is also on the rise in Germany, albeit from a lower level. According to a weekly news bulletin by Germany’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute, BA.5’s share of cases has approximately doubled every week over the last month, from 0.2% of cases at the end of April to 5.2% by 22 May.”
On May 13th 2022, a European Centre for Disease epidemiological update predicted a summer wave driven by BA.4 and BA.5:
“The currently observed growth advantage for BA.4 and BA.5 is likely due to their ability to evade immune protection induced by prior infection and/or vaccination, particularly if this has waned over time. .
Taken together, this indicates that the presence of these variants could cause a significant overall increase in COVID-19 cases in the EU/EEA in the coming weeks and months. The overall proportion of BA.4 and BA.5 in the EU/EEA is currently low but the high growth advantages reported suggest that these variants will become dominant in the EU/EEA in the coming months. As in previous waves, if COVID-19 case numbers increase substantially, some level of increased hospital and ICU admissions is likely to follow.”
ECDC: Epidemiological update: SARS-CoV-2 Omicron sub-lineages BA.4 and BA.5
Image by Pedro Grão from Pixabay