Summer has begun in Russia, and this season our country may face a new wave. This opinion was expressed by the expert of Rospotrebnadzor Kamil Khafizov.
According to a well-known scientist, the emergence of new varieties of coronavirus and further mutations of the Omicron strain can provoke another jump in the incidence of COVID-19, including the emergence of a whole new wave. This is due, among other things, to a decrease in the level of herd immunity in Russia, which has already fallen below 34%. To sustainably protect society from new infections, this figure should exceed 80%. With such a low herd immunity, the emergence of any new infectious version will inevitably provoke a large-scale explosive jump in the incidence.
However, Russia has already gone through the Omicron wave, which has gone largely unnoticed because a significant number of its victims have not been tested. Omicron provokes a more moderate course of a coronavirus infection, which is why people simply mistake it for a common cold. This is easy to see from the numbers, according to which almost all carriers of the coronavirus infection, who are diagnosed with it using tests, are now in hospitals. In reality, no more than 5% of Omicron victims need to be hospitalized. So, the current incidence statistics are just the tip of the iceberg.
Khafizov stressed that vaccination remains the only reliable protection against an increase in the incidence. The more regularly people vaccinate themselves, the more likely they are not to get sick with the coronavirus, or suffer from it in a severe form. (READ MORE) 
Kamil Khafizov Medicine Head of the research group for the development of new diagnostic methods based on sequencing technologies