Is the pandemic coming to an end?

Not anytime soon, unfortunately.

This was from today’s World Health Organization’s Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, opening statements at today’s media briefing (8/31/2022)

“Now to COVID-19, where we are now seeing a welcome decline in reported deaths globally.

However, with colder weather approaching in the northern hemisphere, it’s reasonable to expect an increase in hospitalizations and deaths in the coming months.

Subvariants of Omicron are more transmissible than their predecessors, and the risk of even more transmissible and more dangerous variants remains.

Meanwhile, vaccination coverage among the most at-risk people remains too low, especially in low-income countries.

But even in high-income countries, 30% of health workers and 20% of older people remain unvaccinated.

These vaccination gaps pose a risk to all of us.

So, please get vaccinated if you are not, and get a booster if it’s recommended that you have one.

Even if you are vaccinated, there are simple things you can do to reduce your own risk of infection, and to reduce the risk of infecting someone else.

Avoid crowds if you can, especially indoors;

If you are in a crowded indoor space, wear a mask and open a window

And continue to clean your hands, which will help to protect you and others from all kinds of viruses and bacteria.

Living with COVID-19 doesn’t mean pretending the pandemic is over.

If you go walking in the rain without an umbrella, pretending it’s not raining won’t help you. You’ll still get wet.

Likewise, pretending a deadly virus is not circulating is a huge risk.

Living with COVID-19 means taking the simple precautions to avoid getting infected, or if you are infected, from getting seriously sick or dying.

Once again, I am asking all governments to update their policies to make best use of the life-saving tools that exist to manage COVID-19 responsibly.“

Although I am vaxxed and boosted, I am still extremely Covid cautious and mask up anytime I have to go inside a business or store, and I don’t go inside restaurants or go to shows or movies, or events or parties or anything social, really, due to the people I am in regular contact with, which is not very many, being in the high risk groups. I am waiting anxiously for the new boosters to become available in the next few weeks, but even then, I will remain very Covid cautious.

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/who-director-generals-opening-remarks-media-briefing-31-august-2022

Yes. There is no pandemic at this time. COVID will be around like the flu and the common cold.

And Dr. Tedros is not a medical doctor. He holds a doctorate in philosophy. Tedros is the first Director General of WHO without a medical degree. His past is a must read.

Technically, I think they are using the word endemic now in the US. I’ve been saying it’s endemic for two years. I don’t see it going away for many years to come.

I look at the Florida numbers every few weeks and people are still getting sick and people are still dying at rates higher than you probably think, but much lower than the first year of the pandemic. A month ago my friend and her husband caught it, and he’s not recovering well, he was diagnosed with long covid.

I’m half cautious half taking risks. I still wear a mask in stores and public bathrooms. I try not to be very close to people when talking to them, but they often get too close. If I take a step back they take a step forward [sigh] frustrating.

It’s been over here for months. Numbers of infections are still up but hospitalizations and deaths are way down. Masks are not a thing anymore. It is very rare to see anyone with one

Call it what you want, but large numbers of people are still dying from it. Older folk are most vulnerable to it. Send your love to grandma if she gets it. My mom was in and out of the hospital for 2 months. We ended up sending her to a nursing home.

It’s been over* here in New England for a long time.

* You still see the occasional (maybe ~1% people) mask in stores or restaurants. But that’s it, fortunately.

I’m wondering what it will be like when vaccinations wear off for most people.

I went to Walmart Neighborhood Market a mile and a half from my house very early yesterday morning and there were about 8 of use with masks on out of the 25 or so people in the store. I was in Charlotte, NC for about a month mid July through mid August and there were always a few people with masks on no matter where I went. It’s a small percentage of people, but more “normal” now to see the masks similar to when I was in Japan, although I see more masks still now here in the US than when I was in Japan, but when I was in Japan there wasn’t any sort of high alert for contagious disease. When I flew home my entire row wore masks, and about 30% of the passengers altogether.

I will always be wearing a mask while flying. That strategy has worked so far.

My doctor – I had a visit yesterday – says “treat it like the flu”. Keep away from others if you’re feeling sick. Otherwise go about your business.

She wasn’t wearing a mask.

@elbanditoroso I hope people will now stay away from others when they have the flu. Flu and cold would be even better. I already know people aren’t doing it, it’s just wishful thinking.

@JLeslie – I know! I went to the supermarket the other day. A guy was coughing away near the veggies I was there to get. I waited a few minutes for the A/C to disperse his germs before I went over there to get my eggplant. I was wearing a mask when I went into the store, just in case. He had been wearing a mask, but took it off to cough (so as not to contaminate his mask?).

Yes the SARS-COV-2 viral pandemic is OVER.
I live near Seattle, Washington. Masks use is way down except the children I see getting off from busses. A lot of kids still wear masks even though they are optional in schools.
I was in England recently (August 7–17-2022). Hardly anyone was wearing masks.
The SARS-COV-2 virus has weakened substantially over the last couple years (a natural progression in viruses because the most virulent strains kill off their hosts so they die off too leaving the weaker strains to survive).
Of course there are people out there who are immune compromised and about any viral or bacterial infection can be deadly.
But for healthy strong multi vaccinated folks the threat of the latest SARS-COV-2 virus is minimal.

I only look at Florida statistics, but my estimate is Covid19 is still much more deadly than flu. You can bet most doctors don’t look at the statistics.

In 2022 in Florida the death rate is .6% of known cases, but plenty of cases aren’t known by the state, so let’s guess it’s more like .3%. Flu deaths are combined with pneumonia on the CDC website historically, so some of those deaths are pneumonia not due to flu (or covid).

By the way that’s 14,241 people have died in Florida from covid as of July 26th in 2022. What is that? Over 400 deaths per week? Someone can help me with the math. Flu and pneumonia is about 2,600–3,100 a YEAR in Florida. https://www.flhealthcharts.gov/ChartsDashboards/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=Death.DataViewer&cid=0125

Here’s a CDC link if you’re curious about your state or the ranking of what kills people. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/flu_pneumonia_mortality/flu_pneumonia.htm

Here’s the specific Florida covid details broken down if you have any interest, the deaths are near the bottom. These are state published numbers from our department of health. http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/covid19-data/covid19_data_latest.pdf

@SnipSnip He holds some pretty impressive credentials in several areas (thanks for the simple search) I think he may know what he is talking about.

His academic credentials are a small part of his story. Read the rest.

CDC-reported current daily averages for USA:
New cases: 83,939
New deaths: 407
New hospital admissions: 5,132

Worldwide current daily reported COVID deaths: 2,104

It is significantly reduced from before. Many people are still dying and having major problems from it, though.

After people were vaccinated, yes I think so.

A lot of people avoided the vaccine. They’re on their own now. So are immune-compromised people. :(

If you’re asking whether we are on the downward arc of the pandemic from the perspective of the grand scope of history, then the answer is probably yes. The pandemic is clearly not nearly as dangerous as it was in the beginning, and it will continue to weaken.

But “coming to an end” is not the same as “over,” and whether or not it’s over has nothing to do with conditions in any single place nor the behavior of the people there. A lack of infections or people not wearing masks in your town is meaningless to the question of whether the pandemic is still ongoing.

“Pandemic” is a word with a definition (“the rapid spread of an infectious disease to a large number of patients in a short period of time on a scale that crosses international boundaries, usually affecting people worldwide”). Even if some places are seeing a huge decline in cases, we are still in the midst of a pandemic when you consider it from the global perspective (which the definition requires we do).

@SnipSnip Dr. Tedros does not have a doctorate in philosophy. He has a bachelor’s degree in biology, a master’s degree in the immunology of infectious diseases, and doctorate in community health.

I would argue that we moved from PANdemic to ENdemic a long time ago. Covid is here to stay. It’s going to be a part of life forever, just like the common cold, the flu, and other endemic diseases. It will continue mutating. It will continue to be background noise in our life. It’s a thing we need to keep having an eye on….but it’s here to stay forever.