The COVID-19 pandemic is approaching its third anniversary, and the virus is still killing people around the world. However, most people have returned to their regular lives as a result of a barrier of immunity created by infections and vaccinations.
The virus and the possibility of a more dangerous variant spreading across the globe seem to be here to stay.
Thomas Friedrich, a virus researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that new variants that are developing anywhere pose a threat to everyone. "Perhaps that will make people more aware of how interconnected we are."
It has gotten more difficult to monitor the pandemic as information sources have dried up. The trusted tracker that Johns Hopkins University had launched soon after the virus first appeared in China and spread across the globe was shut down on Friday.
On March 11, 2020—three years after the outbreak was first classified as a pandemic—the World Health Organization said it was still too early to declare the emergency to be over.
Globally, COVID-19 continues to claim the lives of 900–1,000 people every day, and its sneaky virus is simple to transmit from one person to another. The director of Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, Dr. Eric Topol, feels that the number of fatalities each day is too high.
Daily hospitalizations and fatalities in the US have not yet reached the low numbers attained prior to the delta variant wave. The virus could alter at any time, becoming more lethal, contagious, or capable of defeating the immune system. Public health workers are leaving in increasing numbers as a result of a loss of trust in these organizations.
The pandemic's legacy may be resistance to orders to stay at home and vaccination requirements. Topol wishes we could work together to defeat the adversary rather than fight each other.
In addition to unlocking the virus' genetic code and creating vaccines, humans have also created mathematical models to plan for the worst-case scenario and tracked the virus' evolution by looking for it in wastewater.
The current omicron variants have about 100 genetic differences from the original coronavirus strain, which has resulted in a new normal where COVID-19 doesn't need to be at the forefront of people's minds, but the worst is probably over thanks to population immunity. According to Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins, only 1% of the virus' genome has changed since it was created, making it more contagious.
In comparison to three years ago, when there was no immunity to the original virus, the world is in a different situation today, according to Matthew Binnicker, a viral infection specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Masks and social withdrawal were used as precautions, but these days they are uncommon. We should be immune to the worst of what we have witnessed thus far.
With 6.8 million deaths reported globally, Johns Hopkins released its final update to its free coronavirus dashboard and hotspot map. Only New York, Arkansas, and Puerto Rico were still publishing case and death counts on a daily basis as their government sources for current tallies.
States, hospitals, and testing facilities continue to provide the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with a variety of information, but there is currently less data available, and it has been for many counts. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, stated that although people had anticipated receiving data from them, they will no longer be able to do so.