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Mutated versions of the coronavirus threaten to prolong the pandemic, possibly for years – killing more people and worsening the global economic crisis in the process.
The big picture: The United States and the world are in a race to control the virus before these variants can take hold. But many experts say they already expect things to get worse before they get better. And it also means that the end of the pandemic could move further away.
- “It may take four to five years before finally seeing the end of the pandemic and the start of a post-COVID normal, ”Singapore’s education minister said last week, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Where is it: “There are essentially two separate COVID-19 outbreaks,” Dutch officials said recently, referring to the original strain of COVID-19 and the growing threat from mutated versions of the virus.
- There is light at the end of the tunnel for the first outbreak. Although the virus is still spreading uncontrollably in the United States and much of the world, cases and hospitalizations are down from their peak and vaccinations are steadily increasing.
- But the next iteration, fueled by variants of the virus, is already underway.
And after: A British variant of the coronavirus will likely soon become the dominant strain in the United States, experts say. It’s much more contagious than the virus we’ve been dealing with so far, and some researchers believe it could be around 30% more deadly as well.
- “This hurricane is coming,” Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota and Biden transition counselor, told “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
- A more contagious and deadly strain of the virus could easily return cases, hospitalizations and deaths to record levels, even as vaccinations continue to rise.
“We will see something like we haven’t seen in this country yet, ”Osterholm said.
Vaccines work against the UK variant, and they will help control its spread, just as they will help control the pandemic as a whole.
- But vaccinations can only increase so quickly. The Biden administration is trying to get the doses out as quickly as possible, but there is a very good chance that the most contagious virus will move faster.
- Existing vaccines don’t seem to work as well against some other variants, including a particularly troubling vaccine first identified in South Africa. They work and seem to prevent serious illness and death, which are the most important things, but they might not prevent infections in general.
- Vaccine makers 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 means more hospitalizations and more deaths. Larger epidemics also offer more possibilities for mutations and spread.
- A more transmissible virus means that a larger share of the population – perhaps as much as 85% – would need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. That will be a bit of a stretch, given the widespread reluctance to vaccine across the country.
Because vaccine production is still developing, to control things sufficiently to avoid a second phase of the pandemic, it would be necessary to rely heavily on social distance and the wearing of masks.
- This is not a very promising position, especially for a country like the United States.
The bottom line: Vaccines work, and they are still the key to ending this pandemic. But relying almost exclusively on them only makes the job more difficult and will likely prolong this pandemic for years to come.
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