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Two accounts on Twitter that regularly share COVID info posted that the pandemic is not over and COVID is still here. I asked both what it would take for them to consider the pandemic over, and neither answered.
I am not saying COVID is gone. Risks remain. But with COVID at the lowest level in 5 years and four consecutive declining COVID surges, it is fair to ask how people will (or won't) define the end of the pandemic.
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We say flu season is over every year, even though the flu returns 9 months later. No one picks a fight with someone for saying flu season is over.
COVID certainly is not like flu as of yet. It circulates at a higher level during lulls, and it still surges 2x a year. I'm not arguing that COVID is gone.
But, if we're going to keep saying "the COVID pandemic is ongoing," we should have some idea of a definition for when we will say it is. Pandemics do NOT last forever.
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IMHO it's when there's no longer a significant threat to health, not just death and hospital patients but Long Covid and chronic illness. Covid's long term effects are much more common and worse than flu's.
We're still using tweaked versions of the vaccines from 2021, which are great but they don't do enough to prevent Long Covid. If we could get some next gen vaccines through the approval pipeline that either prevent infection altogether or prevent long term illness, at least for me that would be the end of the pandemic.
@hildabast has been doing a great job with news about the next gen candidates.
It would be tremendously helpful to have reliable government data to support making this call. Yet another way our governments are not serving us. The market is also not serving us well here, either, having opted early on for denial.
While I too am observing this lull to do some things I wouldn't do during a surge, I think "a year without a surge" might be a place to start for defining the end of the pandemic.
@JMMaok First, a year without a surge is an unreasonable definition. By that definition, we're also in a never-ending RSV and influenza pandemic because those surge every year. I think a reasonable definition might be a year with just one surge--during respiratory season.
Also, what more data do you need? We have the most accurate and reliable data around--wastewater analysis. There are also sources of positive rate (but even that is less useful, IMO.) I think we have what we need today.
COVID doesn't have the reliable annual pattern of flu. It might be true that COVID is destined to be a seasonal virus, but that's not a given. Other viruses have outbreaks but not a seasonal pattern.
There seems to be a lot we don't know about translating wastewater to cases. If wastewater were reliably "zero COVID detected" paired with some other forms of testing (maybe of healthcare workers?) that would be one thing. Our current wastewater data tells us a lot less.
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