Is the coronavirus becoming endemic? The UK could be the first

The first country where the virus becomes endemic could be the UK, which has been hit hard by it. Greece is in recession.

There appears to be light at the end of the tunnel, experts say cautiously. According to healthstories.gr, British experts have assessed the epidemiological situation in the country and are optimistic about the future.

Despite the fact that the day before, the authorities announced 120,821 new cases of coronavirus in the country, a week ago this figure was 218,000. That is, a drop in the incidence, which has been observed for 6 days, is about 50%. This allows experts to argue that, perhaps, the end of the pandemic will be much earlier than predicted at the height of Omicron’s aggression.

Not only the conclusions of experts, but also a mathematical model showing the dynamics of the development of the incidence, demonstrates an optimistic forecast. London School of Public Health epidemiologist David Hayman says:

“Currently, the countries of the northern hemisphere are going through various stages of the pandemic. And the UK is probably the closest country to any pandemic outbreak if it’s not over yet and the virus is endemic like the other four coronaviruses.”

The specialist draws attention to the existing gap between the number of infections and the number of deaths. This demonstrates, according to experts, the famous “herd immunity”, which in the UK is estimated at 95%. And its main reason, of course, is a very high level of vaccination.

However, favorable forecasts should not cause complacency, many experts emphasize. A new boom is quite likely in the near future, so now it is too early to relax. According to WHO expert Kerkhove, coronavirus is becoming endemic, but so far this has not happened:

“This virus is on its way to becoming endemic. It’s not even disputed. But we’re in the middle of this pandemic right now, and the rate of spread, the intensity of it, and the rate of impact of new infections on key healthcare services, the rate of hospitalizations are very significant… So the virus is on way of becoming endemic, but we’re not there yet. The virus is evolving. And “omicron” is likely not the last strain we’ll be talking about. So we have an element of unpredictability. We don’t have the predictability that we have. flu, typical seasonal illnesses. But we might get there.”

The epidemiological situation in Greece also demonstrates optimism. Demosthenes Sarigiannis, professor of environmental engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, says both his team’s data and models show a clear decline phase of the pandemic. There is a recession when one infects less than one person (0.72). However, he noted that the optimistic scenario would apply as long as protection measures were observed and while maintaining a high level of vaccination:

“The key is immunity. Not only natural, due to widespread distribution and infection in society, but primarily due to vaccination. We must be vigilant. We have an enemy circulating in the global community and there are regions of the world with very low vaccination coverage, such as Africa.”

Yesterday, Sunday, January 16, the summary for Greece looked like this: 10,783 new cases, 680 intubated, 95 new deaths.

Encyclopedic Dictionary. ENDEMIC (endemic) – often occurring in any particular region or in any particular part of the population. This term is applied to diseases that are usually or constantly present in a given community of people.

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