All pandemics end eventually. But how, exactly, will we know when the COVID-19 pandemic is really “over”? It turns out the answer to that question may lie more in sociology than epidemiology. (By tanyalewis314)
All pandemics end eventually. But how, exactly, will we know when the COVID-19 pandemic is really “over”? It turns out the answer to that question may lie more in sociology than epidemiology.
“Every time people walk into stores without masks or even just walk into stores for pleasure, they’re indicating they think the pandemic is winding down, if not over,” Dorsey says. Whether or not there is an official declaration of some kind, “I don’t think anything really has a meaning until, as a society..., we act as if it is.”
Ultimately the 1918 pandemic pathogen evolved to become less virulent: it lost much of its ability to infect cells in the lungs, where it could cause deadly pneumonia. SARS-CoV-2’s Omicron variant appears to cause milder disease as well, although it is not clear how much of that is because it has lost some of the earlier variants’ ability to infect the lower respiratory tract—or because more people have prior immunity from vaccination or previous infection.
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