The worst of the pandemic might be over for us, according to a public health expert.
The pandemic may end as soon as this year due to the billions of vaccine doses handed out and natural immunity achieved, said Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and former SAGE adviser.
With much of the western world vaccinated and boosted, availability of doses for the COVAX programme – the global vaccine initiative for poorer countries – is increasing exponentially.
Last week, COVAX even delivered its billionth jab, with hopes of a further 20 billion to be administered globally this year. That puts us in a pretty good position, according to Dr Farrar.
He told Sky News: “The UK in particular and some other countries are in a very, very strong position now. They have fantastic rollout of vaccines and there’s a high degree of natural immunity.”
The Wellcome Trust (and the Gates Foundation) have pledged a total of £221m for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which has helped make vaccines available to poorer countries.
“If you think there are seven billion people or so in the world, we should now in the first half of 2022, be able to get vaccines to everybody that wants it in every country in the world, and that has got to be our target,” Dr Farrar continued.
It comes as Boris Johnson announced the ending of Plan B Covid restrictions in England from next week, saying that the Omicron wave had now peaked nationally.
But just how on course are we for the end of the pandemic?
The director-general of the World Health Organisation seems to be less optimistic. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic is “nowhere near over”.
He warned world leaders not to get complacent just because Omicron has proven to be a milder variant on average than previous strains.
While Omicron is less severe on average, it’s highly transmissible and “the narrative that it is a mild disease is misleading,” he said.
“Make no mistake, Omicron is causing hospitalisations and deaths, and even the less severe cases are inundating health facilities.”
Dr Ghebreyesus added: “With the incredible growth of Omicron globally, new variants are likely to emerge, which is why tracking and assessment remain critical.
“I remain particularly concerned about many countries that have low vaccination rates, as people are many times more at risk of severe illness and death if they are unvaccinated.”
Other health professionals are in agreement with Dr Ghebreyesus’s view.
Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, tells HuffPost UK that SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes Covid – will be here “for decades or even centuries”.
“So in one sense the pandemic is here to stay, but in another sense Covid the disease is probably not,” he says. “The question should really be when will Covid stop having such a negative impact on our health and our society?”
Professor Hunter does not think we’ll wake up one day and say “today is the day we can put Covid behind us” – it’ll be far more gradual. This is because people’s immunity to severe disease will increase over time, either from the vaccine, prior infection, or both.
“We may see big waves of infection in future as new escape mutations arrive, but we are unlikely to see anything near the pressures on the health service,” Prof. Hunter adds. “And each subsequent wave from now on is likely to be less severe than the previous one at least in terms of hospitalisations and deaths.”
Prof. Hunter reckons the impact of the pandemic will remain in the future, such as nervousness around being in crowded areas, and wearing face masks. This is despite the fact that the government has once again scrapped mandatory ‘Plan B’ laws in England, mean mask-wearing will become voluntary again.
“I do think we will largely be back to normal late spring early summer, though we will probably see another wave later this year even if a new variant doesn’t appear,” he adds. “That wave is unlikely to require many if any further restrictions.”
But with higher natural and vaccine immunity, there may be risk of stronger, more resistant variants forming. So we mustn’t drop our guards, says professor Lawrence Young, a virologist from Warwick Medical School.
“Talk of an end to the pandemic is premature. With infections raging across Europe and other parts of the world, there is no room for complacency,” he says.
“We must take a cautious approach to easing restrictions. Maintaining some control measures such as face masks and lateral flow tests will be important given the currently high levels of daily cases as will the continued roll-out of vaccination.”
Professor Young stresses that there’s no guarantee that infection levels will continue to fall and says the NHS remains under extreme pressure.
“It’s important that we learn from previous experience,” he says. “We’ve been here before when we thought that the Delta variant would be the end and that no variant could possibly be more transmissible. Remaining cautious while gradually easing restrictions is right for now but we need to stay alert for a possible resurgence of Omicron infection and for the arrival of new variants.”
