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 Just weeks ago, disease experts were predicting that countries would
begin to emerge from the pandemic in 2022 after enduring a series of
surges driven by the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants. First
among them would be populations with a significant amount of
exposure to the coronavirus, through a combination of infections and
vaccination.
In those places, COVID was expected to ease into an endemic disease,
hopefully with less-severe periodic or seasonal outbreaks. Vaccines,
available for much of 2021 only in wealthy nations, could reach the
majority of the global population by the end of the year ahead.
But the rapid spread of the highly-mutated Omicron variant,
identified in late November, and its apparent ability to reinfect
people at a higher rate than its predecessors, is undermining that
hope.
Already, countries are reverting to measures used earlier in the
pandemic: restricting travel, reimposing mask requirements, advising
against large gatherings for the winter holidays. While it is not
quite back to square one, much more of the world will need to be
vaccinated or exposed to COVID to get past the worst of the
pandemic, disease experts told Reuters.
"People are sick of the pandemic and God knows I am, but unless we
can get some urgency to compel our leaders to take action, I really
see 2022 being a lot of more of the same that we saw in 2021," said
Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious
Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.
Even after COVID becomes a more endemic disease, new variants will
spawn outbreaks and seasonal surges for years to come.
"There's always going to be a baseline number of COVID cases,
hospitalizations and deaths," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious
disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "A
lot of people haven't come to terms with that."
The hope is that the virus diminishes to the point where it is no
longer disruptive. But living with COVID-19 does not mean the virus
is no longer a threat.
Instead, people will need to be ready to adjust when the next
variant comes along, said Dr. Tom Frieden, chief executive of
Resolve to Save Lives, a global public health initiative, and former
director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"You need to recognize that at certain times, it's going to be safer
to do things than at other times."
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 PANDEMIC PHASE ENDING IN 2022?
Some scientists are not entirely ready to
abandon hope that some parts of the world will
emerge from the pandemic next year. More than
270 million people have been infected with COVID,
according to the World Health Organization,
while an estimated 57% of the global population
has received at least one vaccine dose,
representing potential protection that did not
exist two years ago. "Even if
that immunity is not as good against Omicron, it doesn't mean that
it's worthless. And that immunity is more effective against serious
illness than it is against getting infected at all," said Dr. David
Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins.
So far, most of the studies looking at the effectiveness of vaccines
against Omicron have focused on neutralizing antibodies, which latch
on to the virus and prevent it from entering and infecting cells.
Blood test results from fully vaccinated people show Omicron has
learned to escape neutralization; a booster dose might restore that
protection.
Immune system T cells, which destroy infected cells, also appear
still to be able to recognize the variant. Many experts believe this
second line of defense will prevent hospitalizations and deaths.
"You still have a lot of people who are susceptible" because they
are not yet vaccinated, said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious
disease specialist at New York University. She said that was among
the reasons she believes it will be some time before the world moves
from pandemic to endemic COVID-19.
In the meantime, living with COVID in 2022 will likely mean
assessing local risks and protecting oneself through vaccination,
masking and social distancing.
"When I go to the store this afternoon, what helps me is to know how
much COVID is in my community," said Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of
the Department of Medicine at University of California, San
Francisco.
"There will not be one state of the pandemic. There will be
different states for different people and for different regions," he
said. "And that's going to be the way it is for the foreseeable
future."
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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