I’m wondering will this pandemic ever Be over?

[SparklesandGold]

I thought about the swine flu pandemic of 2009 and it was declared over by summer 2010.

It feels like covid will never end, I know it will always be here but do you think we will ever get back to complete normality when the world vaccination rates are high enough?

As in no more travel restrictions or the risk of going back into lockdowns?

Also, what is the science behind this? Why is this a pandemic? Could you not say the common cold is also a pandemic?

@Heyhohi

No, sorry life won’t be back to pre 2020, we need to adjust to a new normal. 😌

Based on what??

China is a massive country with huge social problems. Hardly anyone (looking at the general population) in China is responsible for Coronavirus. There are some very rich people in China - but most have a far lower standard of living than I do. I don’t want to see poor Chinese workers penalised for this.

@SparklesandGold

What will it actually take for this pandemic to be declared over?

The WHO will declare when it’s over. That won’t be until the developing world has been largely vaccinated. If the virus doesn’t mutate into a more dangerous variant and our vaccines continue to keep cases under control as they are now doing I the U.K., then the virus will become endemic in the world, and the pandemic will be declared over. That will probably be several years away unfortunately.

Viques I'm not being flippant or dismissing any deaths or people who have suffered. It is awful for their friends and families. But at the moment we are returning to some sort of normality, although that may of course change.

During the pandemic I've had friends diagnosed with cancer. Some have died. I've also lost friends and family to other illnesses.

We have to find a way to live with this and move on. People do get sick and die but we have to find a way forward. The social impacts of the pandemic are huge, and will be felt for years to come.

Pot.Kettle.Black.

@SparklesandGold

What will it actually take for this pandemic to be declared over?

Are you looking for actual figures because I don’t think that exists. It’s more nuanced than that.

Essentially you’re looking for a period of stability (measured in months not days) across all countries that will be indicated by various factors including dominant variant, immunity and healthcare capacity. We won’t all reach that point at the same time which makes it difficult and I imagine some countries will hover in and out of fitting the criteria to declare the end to the pandemic. It’s likely we won’t know exactly what we’re looking for until it’s happened, certainly not whilst we’re still unsure of how effective the vaccines are against new strains. But development of vaccines and treatments haven’t stopped and are running alongside the situation so it’s just as likely we’re not going to be in a position of waiting for newer science like we were in 2020.

@thenewduchessofhastings

What about the Spanish flu?;that pandemic ended without vaccines;that pandemic was so much worse;millions died.

Thé strain coronavirus that caused that eventually mutation into seasonal flu.

Estimates are that 50m died from Spanish flu, 675,000 from the USA. USA reported death rates are already at that level and their excess deaths exceed it. I think you are taking as fact the tiny numbers of deaths some countries have assigned to covid, when they are enormous underestimates. Or perhaps you're imagining the deaths have finished, when in parts of Africa and Asia their largest wave is just beginning. I had the H1N1 swine flu descendant of spanish flu, and it was awful, but it didn't cause as many long term complications as covid. So no, it actually was NOT "so much worse", you've just misunderstood some facts and dangerously underestimated the covid illness.

China can easily fault rest of world for not controlling covid as well as they have. This is the fault of our weak liberal democracies and rights to civil liberties and personal privacy (they can say).

[quote PatrickTheFox]@Orf1abc I do think that is quite lazy reporting by The Guardian. As someone with lots of family in southern Africa I feel very strongly that there should be more vaccine equality. I have no family in this country and haven't seen any of my relatives since 2019 so I have a very strong vested interest in getting the whole world vaccinated.

BUT:

1. It is not just about vaccines - a lot of poorer nations need needles, PPE for health care professionals, vaccinators, logistics help to store vaccines, help to distribute it to big cities and also huge sparsely populated areas. For example, Botswana had to stop giving AZ second doses because they ran out of doses (there were supply issues and the plan wasn't in place to hold back second doses). Malawi, Congo, South Sudan are just three countries (there are more I just can't remember them offhand) who have had to destroy expire vaccine shipments because they haven't been able to distribute them in time.

1. What would massively help is having more of the one dose jabs like Johnson & Johnson - I'm not sure which (if any) countries are stockpiling that but perhaps attention needs to be paid at massively ramping up production of that jab.

1. I don't know whether or not it can be fixed but there is a lot of vaccine hesitancy about the AZ vaccine which I think is Europe's fault. The "quasi vaccine" comments from world leaders (even though this was in direct contradiction to the advice of the EMA) hasn't gone unnoticed in the rest of the world. So when the Netherlands and Denmark send lots of their unwanted AZ vaccines to Kenya, Namibia etc it does look a bit like "it's not good enough for the Europeans but the second rate vaccine is good enough for us Africans". Some hospitals in Namibia are no longer admitting patients over 50 years old and bodies are being piled 3 per drawer in the morgues. And they have AZ supplies which a lot of people won't have. It isn't so long ago that Africa was indeed a dumping ground for medicines or clinical trials so who can blame them for being nervous? It makes me so cross that the world's cheapest vaccine made by a company who committed to do it on a not-for-profit basis was weaponised by politicians looking to score points.

1. The article quotes the fact that countries like Haiti, Yemen, South Sudan etc have barely vaccinated anyone . Seriously. These countries are politically unstable, have ongoing wars etc - fighting people are not going to pause things to allow a vaccine rollout to take place before resuming hostilities. There is no doubt these places need help but is the suggestion that the rest of the world waits for them to catch up really feasible?

I have no idea what the answer is. And I really don't mean to rant. But I would appreciate it if some of the people who criticise vaccine hoarding could look at the bigger picture and come up with constructive suggestions.[/quote]
Great post.

I also dislike the lazy suggestion.that if only patents were shared, all would be well. Look at the EU difficulties in ramp-up, it's lack of raw materials and specific vaccine expertise that caused delays, not failure to share with other facilities. Countries need up-front taskforces that help with planning out the logistics and then get a raft of vaccines, rather than waiting for them to fail and waste vaccines. It mashes no sense that some countries have been given so many with no plan to use them, the vaccines should have been distributed to more locations and trickled through at the level each country can manage.

People have been doing that since the start @MRex - quoting final tallies from previous pandemics and not recognising that we’re in an ongoing situation. It’s like watching a football match, turning it off at half time and declaring who lost. There’s a massive disconnect somewhere.

@lljkk

China can easily fault rest of world for not controlling covid as well as they have. This is the fault of our weak liberal democracies and rights to civil liberties and personal privacy (they can say).

Well we’ve basically handed them that piece of propaganda on a plate haven’t we?

Because we have democratic procedures & principles.

Already Covid is evolving into endemic rather than a pandemic. I think we’ll always have it circulation, but it’ll not be the killer it started out as. It seems to me that it’s no longer helpful publishing the daily infections/hospitalisations/deaths either. 1500 people on average die every day from many other illnesses, so we mustn’t lose our sense of proportion either.

A doctor friend of mine pointed out at the height of the pandemic, if we tested as diligently for flu as we have done for Covid, we would be very shocked just how many actual cases there are every year. After all, we were told in the past if we suspected we had flu not to bother going to the doctor as there was a risk you could spread it and there was nothing they could do anyway, so clearly, millions of cases went unreported. I’ve had flu twice, felt diabolical and just sweated it out in bed for a week or so until I recovered.

True @lljkk, though I would argue that personal politics would impact whether or not you think that has served us well over the past five years. Personally I think we need to raise the bar in who can stand for an elected role.

I think there will be some permanent changes, but it'll take years for them to filter through:

1. More testing for a range of diseases and expectation of isolating when sick - people used to do this for many illnesses, but have decided somewhere down the line that it's ok to spread disease, I think that will slowly change after the next two winters.
2. The link between poor environmental behaviours and spread of disease will add pressure for change. Habitat destruction and wet markets are practices that need to end globally; if countries won't or can't stop, then between bribery and threats of sanctions or other force they will need to be helped to stop.
3. Increased pressure on government "readiness"; small scale but in the UK the prep work that was missed will all get done.
4. People and governments will not forget the closed borders; what seemed almost impossible last January is now a fact of life. Different countries will set up and retain a raft of different rules regarding vaccination needs, test needs etc. Coupled with climate financial sanctions, there will be impacts on mass travel capability.
5. I'd like to suggest better funding and better use of funding for the NHS, but that's hope rather than expectation. Most likely there will be a boost for a few years and then it'll tail off.