While the spread of the Omicron variant of the Corona virus gains momentum in Europe and the USA, experts are reshaping their expectations from the pandemic for 2022.
Just a few weeks ago, experts predicted that after waves of infections by Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants, countries would begin to surpass the pandemic by 2022. It was thought that the countries that would start to recover from the pandemic would be the ones most exposed to the Corona virus through infections and mass vaccination.
In such countries, it was predicted that Covid-19 would become an established disease, with vaccines accessible only to wealthy countries for most of 2021, reaching the majority of the global population by the end of 2022.
However, the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, which was detected at the end of November and transmitted much more quickly than previous variants, dashes these hopes.
Many countries have already begun to revert to the measures they had resorted to in earlier phases of the pandemic. Travel restrictions, the obligation to wear a mask, the advice to stay away from the crowds before the upcoming Christmas, are the foremost of these measures. Although there is no such thing as a return to the beginning of the pandemic, experts told the Reuters news agency that much more of the world’s population would need to be vaccinated or infected in order to leave the worst part of the pandemic behind.
Virologist from the University of Saskatchewan Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Agency in Canada, Dr. Angela Rasmussen said: “People are fed up with the pandemic. But I think 2022 will be a repeat of what we saw in 2021 if we don’t rush to act on our leaders as soon as possible.”
Although Covid has become an established disease in certain regions, new variants will continue to emerge and seasonal epidemics will continue to break out for many years.
Infectious diseases specialist from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, Dr. “There will always be baseline Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Too many people have yet to face this reality,” Amesh Adalja said.
Experts hope that the virus will decrease to a level that will not disrupt life. But living with Covid-19 does not mean that the virus is no longer a threat.
CEO of the global public health initiative Resolve to Save Lives and former head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Tom Frieden said that people need to be prepared to adapt their lives if a new variant emerges.
Will the pandemic end in 2022?
Some experts have not lost hope that some countries will recover from the pandemic by 2022. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 270 million people worldwide have been infected with Covid-19. 57 percent of the world’s population has been vaccinated with at least one dose of the vaccine. This level of protection was not available two years ago.
Infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. David Dowdy, “While this immunity is not good enough against Omicron, it does not mean it is worthless. This immunity is also much more effective against not being infected at all, but against having a serious illness,” said David Dowdy.
So far, most research into the effectiveness of vaccines against Omicron has focused on antibodies that inactivate the virus. These antibodies prevent the virus from getting into cells and infecting cells. Blood samples from fully vaccinated individuals show that Omicron has learned to avoid the virus inactivation ability of antibodies, and that vaccine supplementation will restore this protection.
T cells, which destroy infected cells and are one of the important elements of the immune system, also have the ability to recognize the Omicron variant. Many experts are of the opinion that this second line of protection against the virus will prevent hospitalizations and deaths.
Infectious diseases specialist from New York University, Dr. Celine Gounder said that many people remain vulnerable to the virus because they have not yet been vaccinated. Dr. Gounder noted that it will take a long time for Covid-19 to cease to be a pandemic and become a regional disease due to insufficient vaccination.
Living with Covid-19 in 2022 will require assessing local risks, protecting by vaccination, masks and social distancing.