Mutated versions of the coronavirus threaten to prolong the pandemic, perhaps for years, with more people dying and deepening the global economic crisis.
The big picture: The US and the world are in a race to get the virus under control before these variants can gain a foothold. But many experts say they expect things to get worse before they get better. And that also means that an end to the pandemic may be further away.
- ‘It can take four to five years before we finally see the end of the pandemic and the onset of a post-COVID as normal, ”said Singapore’s Minister of Education last week, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Where it is: “There are essentially two separate COVID-19 epidemics,” Dutch officials said recently, referring to the original strain of COVID-19 and the nascent threat of mutated versions of the virus.
- There is light at the end of the tunnel for the first epidemic. While the virus continues to spread uncontrollably across the US and much of the world, the number of cases and hospitalizations has decreased and vaccinations are steadily increasing.
- But the next iteration, fueled by variants of the virus, is already starting to grow.
What’s next: A British variant of the coronavirus is likely to become the dominant strain within the US soon, experts say. It’s significantly more contagious than the virus we’ve dealt with so far, and some researchers believe it could also be about 30% more deadly.
- “That hurricane is coming,” said Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota and Biden’s transition advisor, said Sunday in “Meet the Press.”
- A more contagious and deadly strain of the virus could easily push cases, hospitalizations and deaths to record levels, even as vaccinations continue to increase.
“We will see we haven’t seen anything like this in this country, ”said Osterholm.
Vaccines work against the British variant, and they will help control its spread, just as they help control the pandemic in general.
- But vaccinations can only add up so quickly. The Biden administration tries to push doses out the door as quickly as possible, but there is a very good chance that the more contagious virus is moving faster.
- The existing vaccines don’t seem to work as well against some other variants, including a particularly alarming variant first identified in South Africa. They do work and they seem to prevent serious illness and death, which are the main things, but they generally can’t prevent that many infections.
- Vaccine manufacturers can rework their recipes and come up with booster shots to tackle more resistant strains, but that will take time.
How it works: All of these problems stem from the same underlying problem: the uncontrolled spread of the virus.
- More cases mean more hospitalizations and more deaths. Larger outbreaks also provide more opportunities for mutations to develop and spread.
- A more transmissible virus means that a higher proportion of the population – perhaps as much as 85% – would need to be vaccinated to achieve immunity to the herd. That will be a chore, given the widespread hesitation about vaccines across the country.
Because vaccine production is still scaling up; getting things under control well enough to cope with a second phase of the pandemic would have to rely heavily on social distance and mask wearing.
- That is not a very promising position, certainly not for a country like the US.
It comes down to: Vaccines are working, and they are still the key to ending this pandemic. But leaning almost exclusively on them only makes the job more difficult and is likely to prolong this pandemic for years to come.