WHO warns Covid-19 pandemic is 'not necessarily the big one'
World Health Organization experts have warned that even though the coronavirus pandemic has been very severe, it is “not necessarily the big one”, and that the world will have to learn to live with Covid-19.
The “destiny” of the virus is to become endemic, even as vaccines begin to be rolled out in the US and UK, says Professor David Heymann, the chair of the WHO’s strategic and technical advisory group for infectious hazards.
“The world has hoped for herd immunity, that somehow transmission would be decreased if enough persons were immune,” he told the WHO’s final media briefing for 2020. ...
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“It appears the destiny of SARS-CoV-2 [Covid-19] is to become endemic, as have four other human coronaviruses, and that it will continue to mutate as it reproduces in human cells, especially in areas of more intense admission.
“Fortunately, we have tools to save lives, and these in combination with good public health will permit us to learn to live with Covid-19.”
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The head of the WHO emergencies program, Dr Mike Ryan, said: “The likely scenario is the virus will become another endemic virus that will remain somewhat of a threat, but a very low-level threat in the context of an effective global vaccination program. ...
Ryan warned that the next pandemic may be more severe. “This pandemic has been very severe … it has affected every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one,” he said.
“This is a wake-up call. We are learning, now, how to do things better: science, logistics, training and governance, how to communicate better. But the planet is fragile.
“We live in an increasingly complex global society. These threats will continue. If there is one thing we need to take from this pandemic, with all of the tragedy and loss, is we need to get our act together. We need to honour those we’ve lost by getting better at what we do every day.” ...
Both assessments --- that COVID-19 will become an enduring aspect of life in the future, and that far worse pandemics are likely to emerge --- have been part of my thinking for some months. At least some well-placed experts seem to agree.
Diseases with greater infectiousness, greater mortality, greater treatment resistance (to either preventive or curative medicine), a different mortality curve (e.g., affecting younger adults or children to a greater extent), or with different transmission mechanisms or onset rates (slower or faster), could prove far more challenging. Cholera, insect-vectored diseases such as Zika, slow killers such as viral hepatitis, sexually-transmitted diseases, plague, smallpox, and totally-drug-resistant tuberculosis (TDR-TB) are examples of alternate diseases which could prove highly concerning.
TDR-TB especially: the disease is a slow but certain killer, there is no cure, infectuousness (for now) is relatively low, but so is latency (making detection and cryptic spread likely). The only effective containment measure is a permanent isolation of infected individuals for the remainder of their lives. As I commented years ago at Google+, TDR-TB is the ultimate refutation of the Libertarian fallacy of strict individualism. A global public health and healthcare system is required.
