TEHRAN – Omicron variant may rise for the third time in the country, Masoud Younesian, an epidemiologist has warned.

Over the past two weeks ago, the transmission trend had been decreasing, but this downward trend has stopped during the last week, he lamented.

If preventive measures such as wearing masks and injecting booster doses are adopted, the country will not experience high rates of mortality. However, the concern is that other countries, including Bahrain, Iraq, Bulgaria, etc., are all haunted by the new waves after a while of easing. Even some countries, after the decline of the BA5 wave, experienced an upward trend. So, there are still such concerns, he stated.
Now, we may have a third peak of Omicron ahead of us, depending on the conditions, including population movements, population behaviors, and the level of adherence to health protocols, he highlighted.

Therefore, even though we have already passed the peak of the BA5 wave, we cannot say that the seventh wave is completely over and everything will return to normal, so that, we should be vigilant, he emphasized.
Hamidreza Jamaati, secretary of the National Scientific Committee of Coronavirus, said in July that if preventive measures such as wearing masks and injecting booster doses are adopted, we will not experience the rates of mortality that happened in March with Omicron or last summer with Delta.
“Various studies have shown that in the first trimester after two doses of the vaccine, there is a 70 percent and after six months, about 50 to 60 percent effectiveness against omicron and its subtypes, so our emphasis is on completing the vaccination.”

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