Vaccination grounds support the promise to reduce Covid-19, but governments and businesses are increasingly accepting what epidemiologists have long warned: the pathogen will circulate for years, or even decades, leaving society to coexist with Covid. -19 as well as other endemic diseases, such as influenza, measles and HIV.
The ease with which coronavirus spreads, the emergence of new strains and poor access to vaccines in many parts of the world means that Covid-19 could move from a pandemic to an endemic disease, involving lasting changes in personal and social behavior, epidemiologists say. .
“Going through the five phases of pain, we need to get to the acceptance phase that our lives will not be the same,” said Thomas Frieden, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I don’t think the world has really absorbed the fact that these are long-term changes.”
Endemic Covid-19 does not necessarily mean continued coronavirus restrictions, experts in infectious diseases said, largely because vaccines are so effective in preventing severe disease and reducing hospitalizations and deaths. Hospitalizations have already dropped by 30% in Israel after vaccinating a third of its population. Deaths are expected to fall in the coming weeks.
But some organizations are planning a long-term future, in which prevention methods such as masking, good ventilation and continuous testing in some form. Meanwhile, a new and potentially profitable Covid-19 industry is emerging rapidly as businesses invest in goods and services such as air quality monitoring, filters, diagnostic kits and new treatments.