Will the Covid-19 picture in the world be brighter or still dark?

Can't see "light at the end of the tunnel" yet

Scientists say new outbreaks of Covid-19 will force schools to close. Vaccinated nursing home residents will face renewed infection risks. Workers will have to weigh the risks of returning to the workplace. Hospitals could be overwhelmed again.

Experts say that most people around the world will either get sick or be vaccinated before the Covid-19 pandemic ends. These two things may happen together. Some unlucky people will get SARS-CoV-2 more than once. According to Bloomberg, the race between vaccination and waves of infection leading to the emergence of new variants will not end until SARS-CoV-2 has spread to nearly everyone.

With billions of people still unvaccinated and the chances of eradicating SARS-CoV-2 very low, the risk of new outbreaks in schools, on public transport and in workplaces in the coming months is high, especially as economies reopen. Even as vaccination rates increase, there will still be vulnerable populations such as infants, people who cannot or do not want to be vaccinated, and vaccinated people who still get sick due to waning immunity.

Experts say the next few months will be a difficult time in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the main threats is the emergence of new variants that are resistant to vaccines.

“We will see a rise and then a decline, at least for the next few years, until more people are vaccinated. Vaccination will help protect against the virus. But the key question is how big the outbreaks will be and how often they will be spread,” Osterholm said.

The color gamut of the Covid-19 picture in the coming time

According to Lone Simonsen, an epidemiologist at Roskilde University (Denmark), the five influenza pandemics recorded in the past 130 years have provided some predictions about the course of Covid-19.

“The longest global influenza pandemics lasted for five years, with two to four major outbreaks lasting two to three years. Covid-19 is considered one of the more severe pandemics. In the nearly two years since its outbreak, Covid-19 has caused three major outbreaks around the world and the third wave is still showing no signs of ending,” said Ms. Simonsen.

Covid-19 may not follow the same pattern as past pandemics. SARS-CoV-2 is more transmissible than other viruses. To date, the Covid-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 4.6 million people worldwide. The death toll from Covid-19 is now more than twice that of any pandemic since the Spanish flu of 1918.

Countries with relatively high vaccination rates, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Israel, are now seeing a surge in SARS-CoV-2 infections. Vaccination helps prevent severe illness and death from Covid-19, but the rise in cases means the virus is a threat to children and unvaccinated people, increasing their risk of severe illness. Currently, children under 12 are not eligible for Covid-19 vaccination.

Countries with low vaccination rates, such as Malaysia, Mexico, Iran and Australia, are also facing serious outbreaks due to the spread of the Delta variant. As SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread in many parts of the world, the emergence of new variants in the future is entirely possible.

“In the past, there was a belief that viruses would naturally weaken over time, avoiding the elimination of their host populations. But this may be a false view. While new variants are not always more dangerous than previous ones, pandemics can actually worsen over time as the virus adapts better to new hosts,” said Simonsen.

Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, experts hoped the vaccine would provide long-lasting protection, like the polio shot for children.

SARS-CoV-2 has a “proof-reading” mechanism to correct genetic errors that appear when the virus replicates, reducing the risk of new variants appearing when the virus is transmitted from person to person.

However, the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections globally is so large that new variants are still emerging.

“The magnitude of the spread of Covid-19 is so great that it overwhelms the virus’s ability to be controlled,” said Kanta Subbarao, director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Influenza at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne.

This means that Covid-19 may be like influenza, requiring periodic booster shots to maintain protection because the virus will continue to evolve.

Some researchers say SARS-CoV-2 could become completely resistant to the first generation of vaccines. A study in Japan found dangerous mutations of the Delta variant that have been collected in a global database tracking the issue. Reports that current variants could reduce the effectiveness of vaccines or cause higher mortality rates are still being scrutinized.

Spraying disinfectant chemicals to prevent epidemics in the factory. Photo: Document

“This is a scenario we all hope doesn’t happen. If it does, we’ll have to start all over again,” said Ms. Simonsen.

Other, worse scenarios that could happen in the coming months include the emergence of a new flu virus or another coronavirus strain that jumps from animals to humans.

“As long as animals are the reservoir for coronaviruses, there is a possibility that another virus could emerge in the future. In that case, the world is at risk of having to deal with this virus and a new one at the same time,” Subbarao said.

When will the Covid-19 pandemic end?

Bloomberg believes that the Covid-19 pandemic will not end in the next 6 months. Experts agree that the pandemic will ease when the majority of people, about 90-95% of the global population, have immunity through vaccination or previous infection.

Scientists emphasize that the key factor to ending the pandemic is still Covid-19 vaccination.

“Without a vaccine, everyone will be attacked by the virus because SARS-CoV-2 will spread rapidly and threaten everyone this fall and winter,” said Ms. Simonsen.

More than 5.66 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide so far, according to Bloomberg data. While vaccination rates in some regions such as the European Union, North America and China are quite high, countries in Africa have fully vaccinated less than 5% of their populations. India's full vaccination rate is around 26%.

Erica Charters, associate professor of the history of medicine at the University of Oxford, said the pandemic would end at different times in different places. “Countries will have to decide for themselves what level of coexistence with the disease they can live with,” she said.

Countries around the world are currently pursuing a “zero-Covid” strategy, but the reality is that the world is unlikely to completely eradicate the virus.

Countries like Denmark and Singapore, which have managed to keep the number of cases relatively under control, are looking to a post-pandemic future by gradually lifting restrictions. Others like the UK and the US are reopening despite rising Covid-19 cases. Meanwhile, China and New Zealand have vowed to continue efforts to completely eliminate the virus from their countries.

“The end of the pandemic will not be uniform across the globe. The pandemic is a biological phenomenon, but it is also a political and social phenomenon. Even now, countries have different approaches to the pandemic,” Ms. Charters said.

The Covid-19 pandemic will cause chaos and have lasting consequences for years to come. By the time the pandemic is over, most of the world will have spent many more months living in the grip of Covid-19.

“We must face this pandemic with vigilance and caution. It would be a mistake for anyone to think that the pandemic will be over in just a few days or months,” Mr. Osterholm said./.