With football stadiums full and many of the capacity restrictions lifted, the question on the street is when and how will we stop worrying about COVID-19 in our daily lives. Scientists remind us that the end of the pandemic is still a long way off, as there are still many countries with very low vaccination rates. With this in mind, they handle the increasingly realistic hypothesis that certain countries with a high level of vaccination, such as Spain, will pass into an endemic phase, in which the SARS-CoV-2 virus will continue to circulate, but with a lower prevalence and possible seasonal peaks, as happens with influenza.
Scientists explain what the possible endemic phase of SARS-CoV-2 will be like, with the virus circulating but with a lower prevalence and possible seasonal peaks, as with influenza
We are approaching a scenario that we would all have signed up for in April 2020, when hundreds of people were dying every day, but the endemic phase is still the first stage of the pandemic. The virus will continue to overwhelm the health system from time to time and cause persistent COVID. With the exception of New Zealand, governments seem to have given up on eliminating the virus. This has been achieved with diseases such as measles: in developed countries it is under control and there are only occasional outbreaks, in many cases caused by anti-vaccinationists, such as the one recorded at Disneyland (California) in 2015, with more than a hundred cases.
“What happens in countries without vaccines can affect us in the future”
Eradication is even more complicated. In terms of human diseases it has only been achieved with smallpox. It was in 1980, thanks to worldwide vaccination and the fact that this virus has no animal hosts.
In animals it was achieved with rinderpest. The WHO hopes to eradicate polio, whose transmission is limited to Afghanistan and Pakistan. More utopian is the extinction of the pathogen, which has never been achieved, not even with smallpox, as there are two high-security laboratories, one in the United States and one in Russia, which keep samples of this virus.
The fact that a virus is endemic does not mean that it has lost virulence
The famous American immunologist Anthony Fauci recently said that COVID-19 should not be considered like the flu, but as measles, a disease controlled by vaccination.
Possible ends to the pandemic
1 Endemic phase: continued recurrence
The virus continues to circulate, albeit at lower incidences, and can cause seasonal peaks. Example: influenza and tuberculosis in certain areas.
2 Local elimination of the disease
The disease is controlled in much of the world, but is still monitored by health authorities. Example: measles.
3 Global eradication of the disease
The disease disappears worldwide. This has only been achieved with smallpox in humans and rinderpest in animals.
4 Complete extinction of the pathogen
Mistrust has prevented this from being achieved. Both Russia and the USA keep samples of the smallpox virus in their laboratories.
Vaccines are once again the key. As the doctor, researcher and professor at the University of Salamanca Miguel Marcos has said, “COVID-19 is only ‘like a cold’, after getting vaccinated, but, curiously, many people who compare COVID with the flu tend to minimize the importance of vaccines or are directly anti-vaccine”.
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