Thread by @FLAHAULT

1/16 - “After the World Health Organization’s regional chief for Europe expressed hope last weekend that the continent could be moving to a “pandemic endgame”, his WHO superiors moved quickly to play down such optimism.”
ft.com/content/037a3a…

2/16 - “Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus clarified Hans Kluge’s remarks the following day by insisting it was “dangerous to assume . . . we’re in the endgame” of coronavirus while WHO Europe stressed that the “pandemic is not over yet”.

3/16 - “The confused messaging cuts to the heart of a debate that was bubbling even before the #Omicron variant sparked a global infection surge: at what point does the world move on from the pandemic?”

4/16 - “The different positions can be crystallised as “pandemic versus endemic”. On the one hand is the scientific community which views the continued threat from variants and patchy global vaccination coverage as evidence that the pathogen has not been overcome.”

5/16 - “On the other are those, often politicians, who are keen for the virus that has hung like a millstone around the world’s neck for two years to be treated like any other problematic illness — a threat, but one that can be managed.”

6/16 - “Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, made that case this month when he said “we are heading towards an endemic illness rather than the pandemic it has been up to now”. Yet few health experts think the path to endemicity will be simple.”

7/16 - “Many politicians don’t know what endemic means. It doesn’t mean severity will get lower. Endemic usually implies a steady state of equilibrium without large peaks, so we’re not really there yet. You could argue the politicians saying so are engaging in wishful thinking.”

8/16 - “As long as #Omicron is still present in such numbers, causing massive illness however relatively mild and as long as this overburdens the healthcare sector . . . we can and should not call this an ‘endemic situation’. Not yet.”

9/16 - “Denmark dropped restrictions in spite of soaring infection rates, driven by the #Omicron #BA2, which one estimate could be 50% more contagious than #Omicron #BA1. The end to measures in England this week coincided with a halt in the sharp fall in case rates this year.”

10/16 - “Even Thailand, which pursued a #ZeroCovid policy until last summer, took a tentative step on Friday towards treating the virus as endemic, as health officials outlined guidelines for how to begin treating it like the influenza virus within six months to a year.”

11/16 - “England, where population immunity from vaccines and previous infections was above 95%, had effectively been treating the virus as endemic since the summer. They’ve transferred the risk assessment from the government to individuals (with rapid diagnostic tests, masks).”

12/16 - “Experts also make the point that just because a disease is endemic does not mean it is not deadly — tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/Aids are all endemic and have killed millions. At the other end of the scale, everyday diseases such as flu are also classed as endemic.”

13/16 - “Endemic diseases are just a disease that’s taken up residence in human populations and continues to transmit until measures are made to stop it from transmitting. Tuberculosis, HIV are endemic — infections that have come from the animal kingdom have become endemic.”

14/16 - “#Omicron does appear less virulent, but its greatly increased transmissibility compared with previous variants poses a challenge in the sheer number of hospital admissions it can cause, especially among the unvaccinated.”

15/16 - “N. Lee, Toronto, predicted Covid would not become a disease that’s constantly occurring in a community and instead surge 1-2/y, similar to the way the flu virus behaved. It will come and go depending on the evolution of the virus versus the combined immunity of the pop.”

16/16 - “However coronavirus plays out, scientists agreed the endgame would arrive eventually. ‘It’s pretty important to give an idea there’s light at the end of the tunnel and that pandemics don’t last for ever,’ @BallouxFrancois said.”