When will COVID-19 be endemic? The four factors that will shape the virus’s future
2022-04-01 from theglobeandmail.com
On the surface, the spring of 2022 could hardly look more different than this time in Canada two years ago. Back then the country was shutting down as COVID-19 hammered an unprotected population for the first time. Now, with most public-health restrictions lifted, Canadians are trying to get on with life and – to the extent possible – leave the pandemic behind.
But in one respect, the situation remains uncannily similar to that first COVID spring: Once again the future is unusually obscured by unknowns. This time, it’s not because COVID-19 is a brand new threat. On the contrary, we have come to know it quite well. What has changed is that we’re attempting to live with it in a more permanent way.
Not since the start of the pandemic has the future seemed so difficult to read.
“We’re in a place of incredible uncertainty,” said Christopher McCabe, who leads the Edmonton-based Institute for Health Economics. “But even in the face of that uncertainty we do need to plan, and we need to plan in a systematic way.”
The world Dr. McCabe and his colleagues are planning for is the one in which COVID-19 is considered endemic. Scientifically, the word simply means the disease is consistently present and infecting some fraction of the population.
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