The Voice of Epidemiology

    
    


    Web EpiMonitor

► Home ► About ► News ► Job Bank Events ► Resources ► Contact
 


From Pandemic To Endemic---SARS CoV-2 Now Likely To Be Ever Present

New Strategies Called For To “Live With The Virus”

Several realities about SARS CoV-2 virus have become apparent during the summer of 2021 making the herd immunity goal appear impossible. One British epidemiologist, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group has gone so far as to describe the goal as now “mythical”.

Sir Andrew Pollard told Open Access Government that because vaccinated persons can become infected, then “…that means that anyone who is still unvaccinated, at some point, will meet the virus. That might not be this month or next month, it might be next year, but at some point they will meet the virus and we don’t have anything that will stop that transmission.”

Change Is Coming

Other countries such as China, Australia, and Singapore which have had a goal of  achieving and maintaining “zero cases” requiring lockdowns and strict border control measures are also reconsidering their strategy. China has been battling an outbreak in 17 provinces. All of these countries are facing a need to reopen to the world for economic or other reasons and that seems impossible with a zero tolerance approach to new cases of a highly transmissible virus. Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention,  told the South China Morning Post “the vast majority are mild cases which should not have caused so much panic and pressure…Staying at zero cases is absolutely impossible from the perspective of the whole world…and other countries will not wait for zero cases before they open their borders.” Beijing is slated to host the Winter Olympics in 2022 and is looking to adapt its strategy to be workable in that challenging situation.

Other Factors

The change in thinking is being prompted not only by the  Delta variant of SARS CoV-2, but the difficulty of achieving high vaccination levels in countries with access to vaccines, the lack of vaccines for the majority of the world’s population, the politicization of masking as a control measure, and the reinfection of vaccinated persons who can transmit the virus.  

Here To Stay

As a result, we must acknowledge that the virus is here to stay and learn to live with it, according to former CDC Director Tom Frieden. His conclusion is the topic of an essay in the Wall Street Journal Entitled “The Delta Variant and Beyond: Learning To Live With Covid”. Frieden points out  that the virus can still infect persons with previous Covid infections because the immunity from infection is less robust than that following vaccination. The level of herd immunity that would be needed to achieve full control is too high (estimated to be 85%) than what is achievable in many countries and around the globe anytime soon. Estimates are that the majority of Global South countries are less than 10% vaccinated and the majority of vaccines are going to high income countries. Vaccine immunity itself may wane and produce breakthrough infections.

A New Strategy

A new strategy is needed according to Frieden that would utilize different degrees of control measures depending on the amount of spread taking place in a particular population. In areas of low spread, something closer to normal life before Covid might be possible. In areas with high spread, effective control measures such as vaccination, greater ventilation, distancing, and masking are likely to have to be implemented. Also, Frieden notes that how we travel and congregate  will not return to pre-pandemic ways of doing things. Mandates are likely to become widely accepted as will vaccine verification documents.

Optional Threats

In seeking to encapsulate what we are learning and have learned from the Covid-19 pandemic, Frieden says “we may recognize that we, as individuals, are not the sole masters of our destinies and that what we can do safely depends on what we do effectively as a society…In the long run, Covid may help us to recognize that many deadly and expensive health threats are optional. We can choose to adopt programs and policies that can relegate to history many of the infections and conditions that today drive up health care costs and drive down productivity and life expectancy. What we must now change is the cycle of panic and neglect of public health in response to health threats. Doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results may or may not be a good definition of insanity, but it’s certainly a formula for failing to end the Covid crisis and leaving the world vulnerable to the next—potentially even more devastating pandemic.”  ■


Reader Comments:
Have a thought or comment on this story ?  Fill out the information below and we'll post it on this page once it's been reviewed by our editors.
 

       
  Name:        Phone:   
  Email:         
  Comment: 
                 
 
       

           


 

 
 
 
      ©  2011 The Epidemiology Monitor

Privacy  Terms of Use  Sitemap

Digital Smart Tools, LLC