
Opinions
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When will the pandemic end? |
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Dr. Bonnie Henry, provincial health officer for B.C, said the province would eventually see an end to the COVID-19 pandemic amid a record-breaking surge in infections. (Photo: Wikipedia BC government photo) |
Dr. Rey D. Pagtakhan
More specifically, when will the acute phase of the pandemic end and the endemic phase begin? This has become one burning question in the public minds in many countries since the onset of Omicron onslaught and the experts in the fields of epidemiology, immunology, virology, and public health began to discuss the question more openly and frequently.
British Columbia Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry is one of the first, if not the first, in Canada to publicly state the end of the acute phase of the pandemic is near.
“The way the virus is changing with Omicron – that is leading us to that place sooner,” said Dr. Henry in an interview with CBC News on December 30, 2021. “The type of illness it’s causing, with most of us being protected through vaccination, means that we are going to get to that place.”
Implied in the specific question is the tacit scientific consensus among experts – almost an expectation – that COVID-19 will be a part of our lifetimes, but not with its havoc as we have experienced it to date. To explain, an endemic disease has a constant presence in the community but does not affect an alarmingly large number of people. That is, the burden of disease does not severely disrupt the health systems, economies, and life of societies.
What criteria or metrics the World Health Organization would need – the threshold number of member countries sufficiently tamping down their new COVID-19 cases or hospitalizations and deaths – to declare the pandemic officially over remain to be seen. A date to watch is March 12, 2022 – the second-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic declaration.
Two years ago this month, I wrote two articles on this site. The first was “New Coronavirus Infection: Information and Guidance” to alert our community that a new viral respiratory disease had emerged in China and the concern over its global spread prompted the WHO to declare it a “public health emergency of international concern.” There were less than 100 cases. The second article two weeks later, “COVID-19 Epidemic in China: A Global Concern,” was to document the phenomenal country-spread the virus did with over 40,000 sickened and over a thousand deaths. There was no available drug nor vaccine.
Now at press time (January 24, 2022), the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center has posted the following grim statistics: 1. over 355 million cases and over 5.6 million deaths globally; 2. over 3.4 million cases and over 53.5 thousand deaths in the Philippines; and 3. over 2.9 million cases and over 32.7 thousand deaths in Canada. Since Omicron was first identified barely three months ago and has since displaced the Delta variant for dominance, more than 80 million cases have been reported to the WHO – more than were confirmed for the whole of 2020.
At the same time, at least four brand-named drugs (for intravenous and oral administration) and vaccines are now available in Canada. The world has now fully vaccinated 52.5 per cent of its population, with both the Philippines and Canada above this global average at 52.97 per cent and 79.43 per cent, respectively.
On 24 January 2022, the WHO’s executive board outlined the following realities the world cannot accept, namely:
It underscored the point: “Vaccines alone are not the golden ticket out of the pandemic. But there is no path out unless we achieve our shared target of vaccinating 70 per cent of the population of every country by the middle of 2022.” It has shared the optimism that “we can end COVID-19 as a global health emergency, and we can do it this year.”
Barely three months since its onslaught last November, Canada and the world have seen Omicron become the dominant strain across much of the world. Wave after wave have made many to liken it to a disease tsunami overwhelming the health care system. Reporter Rob Picheta’s coverage of this issue, “Omicron has changed the shape of the pandemic. Will it end it for good? speaks to its currency on a global scale. (CNN News, January 22, 2022).
I have paraphrased or listed the following quotes from Picheta’s varied expert-contacts in Europe, the U.S., and in Canada:
Although experts have generally agreed that Omicron has moved the pandemic closer to the endemic phase, it depends on the next variant. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, attributed his reservation to the great variability with new emerging variants. “I would hope that that’s the case,” that we have moved closer to the endemic phase.
As we move closer to the second anniversary of the pandemic next month and the race towards an endemic phase accelerates, many experts still advise public health restrictions at least while the Omicron surge continues. Let vaccination drives continue. While Omicron’s ultra-contagiousness has put a swift decline to Delta’s lethality, we have yet to reach that steady state with the virus. While we know it would not be the acute phase of the pandemic forever, let us keep our fingers crossed.
Dr. Rey D. Pagtakhan, P.C., O.M., LL.D., Sc.D., M.D. M.Sc. is a retired lung specialist, professor of child health, author of articles and chapters in medical journals and textbooks, and a former health critic, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, and cabinet minister, including Secretary of State for Science, Research and Development. He graduated from the University of the Philippines, did postgraduate training and studies at the Children’s Hospitals of Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, and spent a sabbatical year as Visiting Professor at the University of Arizona Medical Center. In June 2003, he spoke on “The Global Threat of Infectious Diseases” at the G-8 Science Ministers/Advisors Carnegie Group Meeting in Berlin.