The Coronavirus May Never Go Away. But This Perpetual Pandemic Could Still Fizzle Out
When the novel coronavirus burst into the world, and 2020 was still young and full of hope, many imagined the pandemic would last for just a few weeks of "lockdown." Later it became: Okay, just one more year of this.
Then the vaccines came out, and even health experts were finally starting to talk about population-level immunity, relaxing restrictions and living it up like it was ’19. Cases were dropping, at least in the United States, and it looked like the end times might soon be at an end.
“For the first time, even as we were loosening restrictions, and the Red Sox came back and etc., cases continued to drop. I was like, ‘This is categorically new epidemiology. This is vaccine,’ ” says Dr. Benjamin Linas, an epidemiologist at Boston University. “We had that moment of hope that perhaps we could generate complete herd immunity. I had adjusted to the idea of like, ‘This is awesome.’ ”
Turns out things are not awesome. With the surge of delta variant infections around the world and the revelation that the strain can cause fully vaccinated people to experience infections and transmit the virus, Linas and other health scientists say it’s time to recalibrate our expectations once again. The coronavirus might very well be around forever, and Linas says it’s high time we accept that.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/09/03/covid-endemic-perpetual-pandemic
