It has begun to feel like a pandemic that will never end, but public health experts now say the Omicron variant may be ushering in a \u201cnew normal,\u201d where COVID-19 becomes an endemic, but manageable, disease.
\u201cI do feel that we are moving into a transition phase in the pandemic, and I do think Omicron represents a major move to endemicity,\u201d Dr. Christopher Woods, a Duke professor of medicine, pathology and global health and chief of the infectious diseases division at the Durham VA Medical Center, said during a Duke University media briefing on Monday that focused on the pandemic. \u201cThat\u2019s my optimistic outlook at the moment.\u201d
That\u2019s because the latest surge in cases has turned out to be less deadly, he noted, at least among those who have been vaccinated and\/or boosted.
So the surge \u201cwill augment population immunity,\u201d Woods added. And with Omicron case counts now easing in much of the United States, he predicts fewer infections in the spring and summer, absent the arrival of any new problematic variants.
That\u2019s good news as the pandemic moves into its third year.
\u201cNone of us, even those of us who wrote about this, could have imagined we would now be going into the third year of the first global and really devastating pandemic of the 21st century,\u201d Dr. Jonathan Quick, a professor at Duke, said during the briefing.
Quick is an adjunct professor with the Duke Global Health Institute and managing director of pandemic response, preparedness, and prevention with the Rockefeller Foundation.
Quick noted the \u201cstunning\u201d nature of the first two years, as the new coronavirus shape-shifted through one new threatening variant after another.
Still, Quick firmly believes that now \u201cwe have the tools to stop COVID-19 as a global pandemic.\u201d
However, he added, \u201cWhat this new normal looks like, and how quickly we get there, will basically depend on two things: One is what the virus does \u2014 and so far it has been predictably unpredictable \u2014 and what humans do.\u201d
What comes next?
\u201cWe\u2019re already on the path with the tools we have,\u201d said Quick, who laid out three possible future scenarios.
One is total disease eradication, something that\u2019s only been achieved once \u2014 with smallpox.
The second is elimination of most \u2014 though not all \u2014 outbreaks, something that was almost achieved early this century in the fight against measles.
And the third is a gradual shift away from a full-blown threat to an endemic disease that humans learn to live with.
Even so, that won\u2019t mean a COVID-free world, Woods stressed.
For one, he sees a transition to seasonal peaks, where infection risk likely goes up during winter \u201cas with influenza.\u201d That means \u201cannual boosters will almost surely be needed, and vaccines will most likely need to be periodically updated,\u201d Woods noted.
Another Duke expert said vaccines have made the difference, and will keep doing so in the future.
\u201cThere is no doubt in my mind that vaccines will continue to play a central role in our fight against COVID-19 as we transition to an endemic phase,\u201d said Lavanya Vasudevan, an assistant professor in Duke\u2019s department of family medicine and community health and the Global Health Institute.
It\u2019s \u201cfrightening,\u201d she added, \u201cto think about how much higher the toll would have been without these vaccines.\u201d
But even as vaccines plus natural immunity drive the move towards a \u201cnew normal,\u201d Vasudevan warned there are still big hurdles ahead.
On the one hand, COVID fatigue gives rise to complacency and drives down vaccination rates. And in light of continued vaccine resistance and misinformation, she said it will be critical to stay focused \u201con messaging around the importance of vaccines.\u201d
Vaccines will need a revamp
New vaccines geared for children under 5 will also be needed, Vasudevan added.
And both she and Quick stressed that while vaccines have been a game-changer, the ones on hand are still not good enough for the long haul.
While acknowledging that \u201cwe\u2019re going someplace where no public health program has gone before with the level of vaccination that\u2019s needed,\u201d Quick cautioned that, \u201cwe\u2019re not going to be able to maintain vaccination protection\u2026 if we have to have to have a booster every six or even 12 months.\u201d
So, \u201cnow we really need an approach to get the best possible vaccine,\u201d Quick added.
\u201cThe reality is that we still don\u2019t have a clear sense of the durability of the vaccines we have. If people are hoping that once Omicron, as it appears to be doing, drops off and comes back to the relatively low level we were six months ago, there\u2019s going to be a tendency to say, \u2018OK, let\u2019s back off,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cBut given our evolving knowledge about the durability of the vaccines we have, and given our need to really make a much more concerted effort towards new vaccines that cover a wider range of coronaviruses, we need to stay on the alert. It would be six-to-12 months before I would be comfortable saying we may be out of the woods.\u201d
Beyond that, both Vasudevan and Woods believe that masks are likely here to stay, at least for a while.
\u201cCount me among those who don\u2019t enjoy wearing masks,\u201d admitted Woods. \u201cBut it feels that it is my duty to protect others, both inside and outside the hospital.\u201d
That imperative, he said, means that masks will probably remain a fact of life in health care settings, as well as when flying or using mass transit, though he believes their use \u201cwill wax and wane with the epidemic information our surveillance system feeds us.\u201d
Ensuring that surveillance system is strong will be hugely important, all three Duke experts agreed, so that the public has a real-time sense of how to behave as the world shifts towards living with the virus.
It\u2019s important to \u201cstay on the alert,\u201d said Quick, who added that lessons can be drawn from the 1918 flu pandemic. At that time, \u201cwe had a fourfold difference in the death rate in cities around this country,\u201d he noted.
\u201cAnd the thing was those places that let their guard up too early, relaxed their protective measures too early, were the ones that were hit the hardest.\u201d
To prevent that, Quick envisions the establishment of a public early warning system that is in some ways analogous to weather prediction.
\u201cWe have reduced weather-related deaths by 95% over the last five decades by being able to pick up the warnings,\u201d he noted. \u201cNow, when there\u2019s a hurricane coming \u2026 most people will change their behavior appropriately. That\u2019s what we need to do.\u201d
Alan Mozes,
Health Day reporter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It has begun to feel like a pandemic that will never end, but public health experts now say the Omicron variant may be ushering in a \u201cnew normal,\u201d where COVID-19 becomes an endemic, but manageable, disease.\u201cI do feel that we are moving into a transition phase in the pandemic, and I do think Omicron represents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}