Many people including myself are concerned if COVID-19 will still be with us in 2023 or beyond? Having done research regarding this topic, I found many interesting articles and wanted to share them with my readers this week.
Many researchers and experts are not predicting an end to COVID in 2023. In fact, the coronavirus is not likely to leave us for a very long time. But most likely, how COVID-19 affects our lives could change.
Before looking into the pandemic’s future predictions, it’s important to understand our current conditions. Although news about the virus’s new variants has decreased in recent months, the virus is still causing widespread illness and deaths across the nation and globe. As businesses across the world continue to adjust to the new reality forced upon them by COVID, it is understood that an effective medical observation is becoming a key distinctive feature among businesses that are growing. The risk of workforce decline brought on by illness is painfully a reality. By investing in technologies and processes to mitigate the risk of infection, employers are in not just the team, but their own future.
Current Status of COVID-19, Variants, and Vaccines
As of June 30, 2022, there have been over 87 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in America. According to the CDC, we are still experiencing:
1. Over 100,000 new COVID cases every day
2. Almost 5,000 new daily hospital admissions
3. An average of 321 daily deaths
With numbers like these, it’s clear that the COVID pandemic is far from over.
Vaccines and boosters for COVID have become widely available, but many Americans remain unvaccinated. Only 66% of the population is fully vaccinated, and only 33% have received at least one booster dose. Although research has proven vaccines to be safe and effective, many Americans still choose not to vaccinate for one or more of these reasons:
1. Continued concern about vaccine side effects
2. Distrust in vaccine efficacy
3. No desire to maintain booster shots
4. Reliant on natural immunity from infection
5. “Playing the odds” on survival
6. Don’t feel they are putting others at risk
7. Not condoned by their religious group
8. Not condoned by their political leader
9. Belief in COVID or vaccine conspiracies
While everyone should have control over their health and bodies, ending a pandemic requires support from the whole society. When some people remain unvaccinated, it weakens the entire community. Variants can mutate and spread between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.
Omicron variants are extremely infectious, although less deadly in general. Some viruses from the Omicron family have become resistant to current vaccines, leading infections to quadruple since April 2022. The availability of at-home test kits may mean that many cases go unreported.
How Does the National Positivity Trend Look Like Now?
While the Omicron surge took the case numbers to another level, we all experienced a sharp drop in daily cases starting this spring. However, the rate is steadily increasing, with a new strain circulating globally. In fact, the national positivity trend is going up with a 32.7% weekly positive case rate.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 and its variants are not likely to disappear any time soon. COVID predictions are leaning toward an endemic, meaning the virus will become familiar and seasonal like the cold or flu. COVID will probably transition from a pandemic to an endemic in 2023, which is good and bad news.
In the future endemic, weaker variants may mean fewer deaths, but the number of deaths that will still occur could be staggering. Although we consider Omicron to be less deadly, it has caused more deaths than the Delta variant. This is because Omicron spreads more rapidly.
Deaths aren’t the only negative aspect of endemic COVID. Long COVID symptoms are another severe consequence of allowing this virus to spread unchecked. Infected people who survive their illness may bear lifelong symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, and loss of smell or taste.
Although the COVID endemic predictions may feel discouraging, everyone must maintain hope and continue fighting this disease. If Americans decide too soon that the battle with COVID is “over,” we could drag this virus with us forever. The virus may become part of our everyday lives, but limiting hospitalizations, deaths, and long COVID illness cases is still crucial.
Understanding An Endemic
• Researchers predict that COVID will become endemic. The term “endemic” may seem unfamiliar to many people. After all, we don’t often describe seasonal illnesses like the cold or flu as endemic.
• An endemic is a constant presence of a disease within a given population. Examples of endemic diseases include influenza, malaria, HIV, and syphilis.
• Endemics are very difficult, if not impossible, to completely remove from society, but they are manageable. Awareness of the endemic disease is widespread, and most populations know what they need to do to avoid becoming ill. For example, screen doors have become very common in places where mosquitoes spread malaria.
For up-to-date information on COVID-19, please visit various Department of Health and the Ocean County Board of Health websites. If you haven’t done so already take the time out to visit “Straight Up COVID” on the Moceans Center for Independent Living website, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Source of Information: Various Google Searches
Until Next Week, Stay Safe and Well!
Comments