Sept. 21, 2022 – President Joe Biden It is now over, the pandemic has ended.. According to the World Health Organization, The end is near. Many people would rather talk about anything, and even New York City has abandoned most of its COVID protocols.
Biden’s claim (made to reporter Scott Pelley on Sunday on 60 Minutes() has been the subject of much debate. COVID-19 to explode yet again, even though he’s twice now tried to soften it. It has divided the public already, led to extensive coverage on television news and led pundits taking sides.
Many people are unaware that a pandemic can’t be declared “over” when the U.S. alone is averaging more than 71,000 new cases and more than 400 deaths a day, and there are 500,000 cases and nearly 2,000 deaths each day around the world.
Biden’s comment has split experts in medicine and public health. Others disagree with Biden’s statement that the pandemic has ended. They point out that COVID-19 is still a public health emergency for the United States, that the World Health Organization considers it a worldwide pandemic, that the virus still kills over 400 people per day in the United States, and that there is no cure.
Others say that vaccinations, infections, or some combination of both, are enough to protect most of the country, at least, for now. They say the time is right to declare the pandemic’s end and recognize what much of society has already decided. Perhaps the best example of this sentiment is a New controversial New York, COVID health slogan: “You Do You.”
A poll by media site Axios with its partner Ipsos was released on Sept. 13 It was discovered that 46% Americans were unaware of the fact. say they’ve returned to their pre-pandemic lives – the highest percentage since the pandemic began. Meanwhile 57% say they’re still at least somewhat concerned about the virus.
A Balancing Act
“How can one country say the pandemic is over?” asked Eric Topol, MD, executive vice president of Scripps Research and editor-in-chief of Medscape (WebMD’s sister site for medical professionals).
It’s far from over, in Topol’s view, and there has to be a balance between protecting public health and allowing individuals to decide how to run their lives based on risk tolerance.
“You can’t just abandon the public and say, ‘It’s all up to you.’” He sees that approach as giving up responsibility, potentially causing an already reluctant public to forget about getting the latest booster, the bivalent vaccine that became available earlier this month.
Topol coined the phrase “COVID capitulation” back in May when the U.S. was in the middle of a wave of infections from the BA.2 variant of the coronavirus. After the White House stated that COVID-19 vaccines were a once-a year need, he used the phrase again.
Topol is now optimistic, though tempered by the recurring reality. “We are on the way down, in terms of circulating virus,” he says. “We are going to have a couple of quiet months, but then we are going to cycle back up again.” He and others are watching emerging variants, including the subvariant BA.2.75.2, which is More transmissibleMore than BA.5.
This was acknowledged by the White House in May When it warnedThere is a possibility of an increase in the number of deaths due to up to 100,000,000 infections this fall. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation of the University of Washington, approximately 760,000 people infected by COVID-19 are currently infected in the U.S. The group predicts that this number will increase to 2.48 million by year’s end.
Are You Ready for a New Phase of Your Life?
“From a public health perspective, we are clearly still in a pandemic,” says Katelyn Jetelina, PhD, a health policy expert who publishes Your Local Epidemiologist, a newsletter on science for consumers. “The question is, ‘What phase of a pandemic are we in?’ It’s not an emergency, where the Navy The ships are rolling in [as it did to help hospitals cope with the volume of COVID patients in 2020.]”
“The biggest problem with that comment [by Biden]Are we allowing all those deaths to be normalized? Are we okay with SARS-CoV-2 being the third leading cause deas? I was disappointed by that comment,” she says.
Jetelina believes that even if people choose to make individual decisions from a public health standpoint, most people still need consideration of others when making COVID-19 precautions. She is always mindful of how her actions affect others in her personal and professional life. For instance, she says, “we are going to see my grandpa, and everyone is doing antigen testing before.”
Jetelina states, “While younger, healthier individuals may be more comfortable letting go of their security measures, they should still be mindful of those around them who pose greater risk.” “We cannot just put the onus entirely on the vulnerable. Our layers of protection are not perfect.”
Jetelina recommends, just like Topol, that you take all factors into consideration. She advocates taking small steps to prevent transmission and protect the vulnerable. “Grab the mask” before you enter a high-risk setting, and “get the antigen test before going to the nursing home.”
Worst of All?
“It’s not mission accomplished yet,” says William Schaffner, MD, an infectious disease expert and professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. If he could rewrite Biden’s comments, he says, “He could have said something like ‘The worst is behind us,’” while mentioning the new vaccineEncourage enthusiasm for this and pledge to make more progress.
Schaffner also acknowledges that the pandemic has been decided by a large portion of society. “The vast majority of people have taken off their masks, are going to concerts and restaurants again, and they want to function in society,” he says.
He is aware of that. However, he suggests that one public health message be sent to remind people with particular vulnerabilities, such as those over 65 or those with certain illnesses, to keep taking extra precautions, distancing and masking, especially as flu season approaches.
And public health messages should remind others of the vulnerable members of the population, Schaffner says, so those who continue to wear masks won’t be given a hard time by those who have given them up.
A Focus on the Most Victimized
Biden’s statement “could have been phrased better,” says Paul Offit, MD, an infectious disease expert and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He says that things have changed since early 2020.
“We are in a different place. Most of the population are now protected against severe diseases [either by vaccination, infection, or a combination].”
Offit states that the protection has already had an impact on requirements or lack thereof. At the pandemic’s start, “we mandated the COVID vaccine at our hospital [for employees]” Now, the hospital won’t mandate the new bivalent vaccine.
He agrees that the focus should be on those most at risk. He says that people should make their own decisions, according to their individual circumstances and risk tolerance.
Offit said that it is important for scientists to determine how long people are protected against previous infection and vaccines. According to Offit, the goal of vaccination is to protect against severe disease and hospitalization. It is not the ultimate goal of elimination of the virus.
Biden ‘Is Right’
Leana WEN, MD, a medical doctor who specializes in emergency medicine, and a professor of health policy at George Washington University, takes the opposing viewpoint. She believes that Biden should not retract his comments about the end of the pandemic. “He is right.”
She says the U.S. has entered an endemic phase, as evidenced by social measures – many people are back to school, work, and travel – as well as policy measures, with many locations relaxing or eliminating mandates and other requirements.
She said that there was disagreement over the scientific measures. Some argue that the number of deaths per day exceeding 400 is too high to be considered a pandemic. “We are not going to eradicate the coronavirus; we need to live with it, just like HIV, hepatitis, and influenza. Just because it’s not pandemic [in her view] doesn’t mean the level of disease is acceptable or that COVID is no longer with us.”
Wen doesn’t see taking a public health perspective versus a personal one as an either-or health choice. “Just because something is no longer a pandemic doesn’t mean we stop caring about it,” she says. But “I think [many]People live in the real world. They see family and friends, they go out to restaurants, and they are not wearing masks. COVID has become a risk just like many other risks they encounter in their lives.”
The tension between public health and individual health is ongoing and won’t go away, Wen says. This applies to all issues related to health. The shift from the broad public health concern to individual decisions “is what we expect to happen and should happen.”
She also mentioned the cost of COVID-related measures (closed schools, businesses, mental health, economics) and another, lesser-known cost: trust in public health.
She says that continuing to insist on measures against COVID-19 even when the number of cases is declining may reduce trust in public-health authorities. New York has recently declared A public health emergency after finding the polio virus in sewage samples, Wen wondered: “What happens when we say, ‘Get your kid immunized against polio?’”
