When Will the Pandemic Be Over?

A handful of countries, including Denmark and Sweden, have lifted all Covid restrictions in recent weeks and are shifting to an ‘endemic’ response to the virus.

We’ve previously covered what it might take for the pandemic to be considered endemic in the US, but in light of recent news (and a new Covid variant), we’ve decided to revisit the topic.

🤿 A deeper dive… An endemic disease is a sickness that’s always present within a population but considered to be “manageable”, such as herpes or the common flu.

• One metric that’s key to transitioning to an endemic disease is the amount of Covid-related hospitalizations. In the US, that number has fallen steadily over the past two weeks but remains above this summer’s delta peak. 👇

🦠 No longer a “socially critical sickness”... When Denmark dropped all Covid restrictions nationwide last week, it led the world in per capita infections.

• But health officials attributed their decision to falling ICU admissions and shorter hospital stays, as well as the country’s 81% vaccination rate.
• Likewise, Swedish health authorities lifted all virus restrictions starting this week. The reasons were similar – a manageable hospital situation and high vaccination rate (74%).

✋ Yes, but… The US is lagging behind its European counterparts in vaccination rate (64%), which experts say could explain why our omicron death toll is far higher than other wealthy countries. Plus, there’s still the possibility that a new, more severe variant will unseat omicron as the dominant strain worldwide.

• WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last month said, “It is dangerous to assume that omicron will be the last variant… On the contrary, globally the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge.”
• The health agency has warned the next variant to emerge on a global scale will be more contagious than omicron – the real question is whether it’ll be more deadly.