Morocco is entering its fourth wave of community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and is thus observing the second Omicron wave, says Dr. Mouad Merabet, Medical Coordinator of the National Center for Public Health Emergency Operations at the Ministry of Health , who delivered on Linkedin a brief analysis of the epidemiological situation in the Kingdom as of June 26.
Thus, and in his brief comment on the epidemiological situation of the SARS-CoV-2 infection, Dr. Mouad Merabet explains that the week of June 20 to 26 corresponds to the 7th consecutive week of increase in new contaminations and the rate of positivity and the 5th week of the second omicron wave dominated by the increasing circulation of the BA.5 subvariant.
In his analysis, Dr. Merabet argues that the second wave (2VO) is very fast and will probably be shorter, as was the first Omicron wave referred to below (1VO), thus recalling that the 1VO lasted 11 weeks.
In terms of the degree of viral circulation, the Coordinator of the National Public Health Emergency Operations Center at the Ministry of Health explains that the two waves are practically equal, although the overall positivity shows a slight reduction during the current wave in comparison with the previous wave, noting that this is not a final conclusion.
Regarding the Effective Reproduction Rate (Rt), Dr. Merabet affirms that as of June 26, the RT was 1.16 ± 0.01, i.e. greater than 1 at the level of all regions, noting that for the moment, the severity and lethality of Covid-19 are reduced during 2VO compared to the same period of 1VO.
Regarding the proportion of severe Covidosis and the lethality ratio during the first 5 weeks of 1VO, the specialist explains that they were respectively 1.2% and 0.2% and they are currently 0.6% and 0.1%, knowing that these two indicators increase with the advancement of the wave, he says.
To conclude, Dr. Merabet indicates that the current level of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is high at the red level of viral circulation. Unless surprised, the specialist says that the PEAK of new contaminations will probably be reached from this week and will continue until next week.
He is sorry, however, that serious cases of COVIDOSE and deaths will increase in the coming weeks. Remember that this week, 110 new admissions to intensive care and intensive care were recorded against 34 discharges after clinical improvement.
Nevertheless, he clarifies that the overall severity and lethality of 2VO will most likely be lower than what was recorded during 1VO, noting that “ lower severity and lethality does not mean no severity and lethality“.
According to Dr. Merabet, the severity and lethality would have been much lower if there was good vaccination coverage by the booster dose of the vulnerable population, he says.
It should be recalled that Morocco has recorded since the start of the pandemic 1,204,578 covid-19 cases, 16,101 deaths, 1,169,060 remissions and has as of Sunday June 26 19,417 cases under treatment.
As of Sunday June 26, Morocco also has 24,853,149 D1 beneficiaries, 23,337,725 D2 beneficiaries and 6,534,825 D3 beneficiaries.
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