Epidemiologists are beginning to shift their focus towards adapting to the next phase of the COVID-19 outbreak, which involves coexisting with the virus, after tracking case numbers for about a year and a half. Bloomberg News reported that as wealthy countries increase vaccination rates among their populations, the link between infection numbers and deaths is diminishing, leading to a focus on "learning how to coexist with the virus" to avoid harmful economic lockdowns.
Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, stated that "What we need to monitor now is the infection data compared to deaths." Previously, increases in infections in Europe and the United States reflected spikes in deaths; however, the expansion of vaccination campaigns and the effectiveness of vaccines have changed this equation.
World Health Organization experts emphasize the need to monitor situations where the virus spreads more among unvaccinated children and young people, and whether this will restore the link between infections and deaths, or even hospital admissions. They confirmed that the real test will be when hospitalizations and death cases remain low, at which point COVID-19 will begin to appear less as an uncontrollable pandemic and more like a seasonal illness, similar to the flu.
Recently, there have been increasing calls from Western officials to prepare for coexisting with the COVID-19 virus, including British Health Minister Matt Hancock, who stated in Parliament last week: "We aim to coexist with this virus as we do with influenza." The Thai government has also decided to abandon the idea of being a virus-free country, sending a new message of learning to live with the virus long-term, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In this context, Nuzzo, the epidemiologist, states that comparing COVID-19's impact to that of seasonal influenza "is appropriate." She adds, "What do we do with the flu? Do we close schools during regular flu season?" However, health officials in many parts of the world continue to focus on case numbers. In China and Taiwan, despite nearly zero new cases, vaccine shortages mean that even a minor outbreak must be treated as a significant threat.
