Better life
That’s exactly how we’ll know the pandemic is over, experts say
As we move about a year since the blockades began in the United States, Americans are eager to know when the pandemic will finally end. It is difficult to predict when everything will return to normal, however, experts have a good idea of how low the country’s COVID cases and deaths would have to fall to consider the pandemic that has passed, effectively moving to an endemic territory. where we would be able to manage COVID in the same way that we do with the flu. To see what numbers mean the country can open up again, read on and to see what you will be able to do when you get your injection, check out Dr. Fauci Says it is Safe for You to Do This Once Vaccinated. The pandemic will be “over” when the numbers correspond to the typical flu numbers. Reaching zero COVID cases is almost impossible, reports The Atlantic in a new detailed article. But the next best thing is for COVID to become an endemic disease, which still persists in the community at low levels, but does not often cause serious illness. When COVID reaches that point, it will be much more manageable. Paul Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, told The Atlantic that he thinks “the doors will open” when the country sees less than 5,000 new cases per day and less than 100 deaths per day. Several experts agree with Offit’s metrics. “Less than 100 deaths a day – to mirror the typical flu mortality in the United States over a typical year – is an appropriate goal,” Monica Gandhi, a physician, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco, told The Atlantic. Although these numbers are far from zero, that level of risk is “widely considered acceptable,” Joseph Eisenberg, PhD, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, told The Atlantic. And for the most up-to-date COVID news delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. We are months away from these numbers. If we are measuring ourselves against the flu indicators, we have a long way to go before we can call the pandemic a thing of the past. According to the CDC, the country’s most recent seven-day average was 1,975 deaths per day, on February 22. That represents a 36 percent drop from 3,108 deaths two weeks earlier on February 8. If things continue at this rate, it means that it would take another 14 weeks, or three and a half months, to reach less than 100 deaths per day. At this rate, we would reach endemic status in early June, but, of course, many factors could come into play and affect that estimate. And to learn more about our return to normal, see The CDC is about to relax these COVID restrictions, says Dr. Fauci. Some experts think these numbers should be even lower. Although less than 5,000 new cases per day correspond to the average flu numbers, some experts think that cases need to drop even more before we are comfortable to return to normal. Crystal Watson, DrPH, a health safety scholar at Johns Hopkins University, told The Atlantic that a limit of 0.5 new cases diagnosed per 100,000 people per day and a test positivity rate of less than one percent across the country would be better metrics. Watson noted that in order to consider ourselves beyond the pandemic, we must also register at least one month of normal operation in hospitals during which there is no shortage of personnel or equipment. Such stricter measures would be even more difficult to achieve. The US reported 135.25 new cases per 100,000 people on February 22, according to the CDC, which represents a 42 percent drop from the 233.52 new cases per 100,000 reported two weeks earlier on February 8. If new cases continued to decline at that rate, it would take 20 weeks – or five months – before COVID reached endemic status, which would put us in mid-July. And to find out more about post-vaccination life, check out Dr. Fauci is still not going to those three places now that he is vaccinated. The comparison is not perfect, but it is the closest we have to predict the end of COVID. Comparing COVID numbers with flu numbers is not a perfect system, as COVID-related deaths are reported to public health officials, while influenza deaths are estimates based on national surveillance data from statistical models, explained the The Atlantic. In addition, considerably more COVID tests are performed than flu tests, which means that positive cases are difficult to compare. However, many experts consider measuring COVID in relation to influenza the best metric we have at the moment as an indicator of the end of the pandemic. To see when experts think the virus will begin to dissipate, check that COVID will be “practically gone” by this date, says the Johns Hopkins doctor.