Although the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the United States has decreased, experts are concerned about the virus’s potential resurgence and are warning that the country has not yet reached endemic levels due to alarming warning signals and spikes in other countries.
Experts think it is very important to get ready now for the next spike or variant, whether it’s BA. 2 or something else.
BA.2, an Omicron sublineage, has shown troubling evidence of being able to reinfect patients who have recovered from Covid, similar to its sibling BA.1.
New instances have been reported in several European countries, and early indicators suggest the US may follow suit. However, it’s unclear if the surge is due to the variant’s greater transmissibility or capacity to escape immunity, countries’ inadequate precautions and declining immunity, or a combination of factors.
According to professor Aris Katzourakis, “that’s a really, really hard one to answer definitively because everything’s happening at the same time.” However, he and other researchers warned on Monday that new variants would develop and may be more severe than previous variants.
Aside from Delta, Omicron is less severe than the other versions.
Scientists are keeping a close eye on BA.2 for clues that it can re-infect after past encounters with Covid.
And, according to experts, the US is usually three to four weeks behind spikes in the UK.
“I think the signs are all pointing towards there being a surge of BA.2 in the US, but what we’re seeing in Europe has just started to happen over the past week and a half – so it’s still early days, which means there’s a lot of uncertainty,” said Samuel Scarpino, a mathematical epidemiologist and managing director of pathogen surveillance at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute.
It’s unclear how severe such a wave might be, especially considering the recent surge’s immunity and behavioral changes.
He went on to say that understanding the nature of new variants is more difficult now than it was when Covid initially appeared. Huge swaths of the population now have varying levels of protection, whether as a result of vaccination or a past illness that occurred one or two years ago and has since faded. 44 percent of the US population has been boosted.
Yet the Biden administration has announced a funding shortage for Covid, which might result in huge gaps in its ability to react to this and other variants.
Despite top health officials’ statements of confidence about declining cases, financing for Covid efforts such as testing, treatments, research, wastewater monitoring, hospitalization charges, and immunization is stalled. Some of these initiatives may run out of money by the end of the month.
A portion of the issue stems from a misperception of what happens when a virus turns endemic.
In epidemiology, endemicity is defined extremely narrowly. A pathogen is called endemic when the number of persons who are vulnerable to the virus equals the number of people who reproduce, resulting in a consistent number of cases each year.
In other words, because people have a certain level of immunity, experts can figure out what’s going to happen.
Some analysts have claimed that the United States has already arrived at this point — and, perhaps more concerningly, that the virus will surely evolve to become milder.
The main source of concern right now is that officials appear to be giving up control of the virus.
“It seems a very, very risky situation to be in,” said Katzourakis. “That’s the real danger here – accepting that we shouldn’t be doing something to control the virus. That part then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where, by not doing anything, we’re creating a situation that gets ahead of ourselves and causes us even more problems.”
That’s why, even after viruses have infiltrated human populations, it’s crucial to keep a watchful eye on them.
Scarpino believes the United States needs a system like this for pathogen forecasting.
“If you have real-time information, we can keep schools open … We can save lives.”
Having really up-to-date information that is well shared is a big component of that. The CDC data is currently two weeks behind, making it difficult to understand what’s going on.
“I would never decide to carry an umbrella or not, based on a weather forecast from two weeks ago,” Scarpino said.
“Now we know that that requires delivering data to people in real time, in a trusted way, through formats that they have access to.”
Knowing that viruses like Sars-CoV-2 will mutate to pose danger and keeping a close eye on them allows leaders to plan for significant outbreaks.
“Early action is always better,” Scarpino said. “If we start to see cases surging, we may need to take more measures.
“As much as I and everybody else wants this to be over, it’s not over.”
Image Credit: Getty
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