In the past 22 months Coronavirus disease Classified as a global pandemic-spreading to more than 100 countries-the virus continues to circulate worldwide.
Although we now know more about the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 than we did at the beginning, there are still big question marks about the end date and the future of the pandemic.
“We are still in the middle of a pandemic,” according to World Health Organization (WHO).
To better understand the future, WHO is studying the current level of COVID-19 antibodies and the protection of communities around the world.
WHO is considering multiple scenarios: if the vaccination plan remains at the same level; if production changes; and if countries can actually obtain the vaccine and launch a vaccination plan.
“We are considering the time between now and the end of 2022. This is our estimated time for the global launch of vaccines — and vaccinating the most dangerous and vulnerable people — which will change the dynamics of our transmission patterns.” ,” the UN health agency told Global News.
Some effective COVID-19 vaccines that we can use have changed the course of the pandemic and reduced the serious consequences of the disease.
However, it is reported that more than half of the world’s population is still not fully vaccinated. The Data World of Oxford University.
Unfair distribution of vaccines is a major problem, as only 5% of people in low-income countries have at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, said: “We shouldn’t start talking about the end of COVID until we vaccinate everyone who is willing to vaccinate.” At the press briefing on November 17.
“Vaccines are undoubtedly our best tool and will remain in this state,” he added.
The barriers related to access in a limited global vaccine supply are Stop many countries, The expert said. Although high-income countries have made donations to COVAX, a vaccine sharing agency led by WHO, The dose in developing countries has not arrived.
Rupali J. Limaye, a social and behavioral scientist at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, said: “We need to think about how to find innovative ways to motivate vaccination, whether it is through food incentives or economic incentives.”
Horacio Bach, an infectious disease expert at the University of British Columbia, said that extensive vaccination campaigns are needed to curb the global spread of COVID-19. He said that long-term immunity and new mutations pose challenges for vaccination.
Bach added that looking to the future, affordable treatments and innovations such as inhaled neutralizing antibodies — which are being tested in animal trials — may be a game changer.
Without a cure, this disease cannot be completely erased from the map.
“Zero COVID will never happen,” Dowdy said.
“In the foreseeable future, this is a disease that will accompany us. It will come and go.”
However, the good news is that as immunity improves — as vaccinations and infections increase — COVID-19 cases may become lighter over time, he added.
Epidemics and endemic diseases
March 2020, WHO classified COVID-19 as a pandemic because it has spread to 114 countries.
However, WHO told global news that because international law does not recognize the term, there is no general formal mechanism to declare the beginning or end of a pandemic.
“When the spread of a disease around the world is controlled to a local area, it is no longer a pandemic, but an epidemic,” it said.
“In addition, if a disease exists on a global scale but is at an expected or normal level, it will not be regarded as a pandemic, but an endemic disease.”
Have Growing consensus COVID-19 may turn into an endemic disease such as chickenpox or malaria. This means it will be limited to specific regions or certain countries.
The WHO said: “We basically have lost the possibility of eradicating or eliminating it as soon as possible, because we have not attacked it as strongly as possible on a global scale.”
The agency said that even if the virus becomes endemic, it does not mean that it is no longer “dangerous or destructive.”
“In the long run, we want to be able to control this virus. Through extensive vaccination, and the wide availability and strategic use of the tools we have, we can do this.”
In the near future, The winter tide is coming.
As the epicenter of the global epidemic, Europe, See another recovery Despite the restrictions of the past two years, the number of infections has surged again.
In the United States, the number of cases has steadily increased in the past three weeks, especially in states where cold weather has driven people indoors.
Dodi said that although the end of the epidemic is uncertain, there are reasons to be optimistic, because vaccines have been shown to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death.
“The world may never be like before the pandemic. This year we may still experience a winter with a surge in cases, but from the perspective of COVID-19, there are many reasons to believe that the situation in 2022 will be much better than in the past two years. Our influence is even greater.”
-Documents from the Associated Press
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