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After two years with infections, casualties and limitations, the coronavirus seems to have taken on a new form. The new Omicron variant is spreading faster than any other variant, but turns out to be less harsh. It is rumored that pandemics could quickly become known as endemics.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, decided on January 19 that masks should no longer be mandatory. COVID certificates proving complete coronavirus vaccination or negative testing will no longer be required. Instructions for working from home, will cease as well.
Johnson has said the restrictions are being lifted as his government’s scientists believe the infections, caused by the Omicron variant, have already peaked. On the day it announced the decision, the United Kingdom registered over 108 thousand new cases, but the number of victims is declining.
“We will trust the judgment of the British people and will no longer penalize those who do not wear masks,” Johnson said.
Even in Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said that the number of victims of the coronavirus is declining and that citizens will have to learn to live with it, as they do with many other viruses. In Portugal, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa stated in his New Year speech that his country “has passed into the endemic phase”. France’s Health Minister Oliver Veran has said that high infection rates in France and high vaccination rates could mean that this will be the last wave of the pandemic.
The World Health Organization has reacted, saying it is too early to predict when the pandemic will end.
“Omicroni may be less harsh, but to say it is a mild disease is a hoax. “Such a thing damages the general treatment and costs more lives”, said the director of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Towards endemism?
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus was first identified in South Africa in November. It has since spread to hundreds of countries around the world, becoming dominant in some. The WHO has labeled it as disturbing and warned it is spreading faster. This has also been confirmed on the ground.
In Europe, for example, several countries, including Germany, France, and the Czech Republic, have reported record numbers of infections in recent weeks, unprecedented in any other phase of the pandemic. But in most of them, the situation in hospitals has been more stable than during previous waves.
The average vaccination rate in the European Union region is currently 69 percent. Some health experts believe that the high number of infected, which creates natural immunity, together with the number of vaccinated will bring the pandemic to a new stage, or turn it into an endemic.
The transition of an infectious disease from pandemic to endemic occurs when the virus is found regularly in a certain area or among humans, but is more manageable due to the greater immunity of the population. The common cold and flu are examples of endemic viral infections that people face most often.
Bernard Camins, an infectious disease specialist at Mount Siani Institute of Health in New York, told Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE / RL) that the COVID-19 pandemic would become endemic – perhaps within a few months – and would affect only a handful of certain people.
“Ultimately, if a lot of people are going to have some kind of immunity, COVID-19 [sëmundja që e shkakton koronavirusi] will continue to infect society, but not many people will go to the hospital, not many people will end up in fans. “People with compromised immune systems, or those who have not been vaccinated or have not been infected before, will be more affected.”
“But, in the broadest sense, I hope there will be no need for isolation from COVID, because most people will not get sick and end up in hospital. “I want to be optimistic that this will happen in the fall, but it could also be 2023,” says Camins.
Other specialists echo this theory. One of the leading Belgian virologists, Peter Piot, has told Belgian media that the pandemic is entering a new phase, thanks to high vaccination rates and natural infection.
“It is clear that we are entering a new phase. The virus is changing, it is changing all the time. “The Omicron variant is much more transmissible, much more contagious, but it causes less serious diseases.”
“Secondly, thanks to vaccination, the number of victims has decreased and there are fewer people in intensive care units. This, when combined with natural infection, means we have collective immunity. “We also have more experience in what needs to be done to reduce the risk.”
It is a fact that the world has more tools than ever before to fight the pandemic, ranging from rapid tests to the capacity to mass-produce vaccines. The pharmaceutical company Moderna, even, has said that it is working on combining the COVID vaccine with that of the seasonal flu, so that people can strengthen their immunity continuously, without having to be pierced often.
“The goal is to have a single annual dose and, thus, we do not come to situations where people do not agree to take three doses in the winter,” said the head of Moderna, Stephane Bancel.
“They will only take one dose: a coronary booster and a flu booster,” he said.
Although the number of vaccines given against coronavirus is approaching 10 billion, inequalities remain. According to WHO data, over 85 percent of Africa’s population has not received a single dose, while 36 WHO member states have not achieved even 10% of their vaccine coverage. The issue is problematic – albeit on a smaller scale – even in some developed countries. Germany, for example, has over 3 million people over the age of 60 completely unvaccinated.
We will see new variants
Based on this, Dr. Bettie Steinberg, a virologist at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in the US, tells Exposa that the world will see new variants of the coronavirus.
“This is unlikely to happen in the coming weeks. But yes, I think we will continue to see variants until most of the world is immune or vaccinated. I think the answer should be vaccines, “said Steinberg, who does not believe the pandemic is very close to becoming endemic.
“With COVID we are not there yet and I do not know how long it will take to reach the endemic stage. Someday it will happen. “We will have a situation where we will just live with this virus, where some people will get sick, but most will not.”
Asked what has happened to coronavirus pandemics in the past, Steinberg explains:
“Other coronaviruses, in the past, have become endemic and they cause these colds that we have today. There are two coronaviruses that have been problematic recently: MERS and SARS. None of them caused a pandemic. Both have caused so severe illness that they have disappeared. These two viruses are no longer circulating. We do not see problems with them, they are not endemic. “But other coronaviruses that now cause colds happened hundreds of thousands of years ago.”
Asked if something similar to the MERS and SARS viruses could happen to the current coronavirus – that is, disappear – Camins and Steinberg say “no”, this coronavirus is here to stay, given the nature it has shown so far . They point out that even when the time for endemism comes, the coronavirus will continue to be fatal to some.
In different parts of the world there are several diseases that are considered endemic, causing the death of hundreds of thousands of people every year. Such are tuberculosis, HIV / AIDS or malaria.
According to the World Health Organization, the redefinition of coronavirus as an endemic disease is still far away. “We still have great uncertainties and a rapidly evolving virus,” said Catherine Smallwood, a WHO infectious disease expert.
Speaking on January 17 at the World Economic Forum, the leading infectious disease expert in the US, Anthony Fauci, said that COVID-19 can not be considered endemic until it reaches a level that does not hinder the activities of society.
The WHO declared a coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. The pandemic is likely to end when WHO experts assess that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency. The criteria for this decision, however, are not precisely defined. It is likely that some countries will make this decision themselves, depending on how the virus circulates within their borders./REL
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