Roadmap to reach the “next normal” from the Covid pandemic

A A new report released on Monday shows the path to the transition from the Covid-19 pandemic. It outlines both how the country addresses the endemic Covid disease challenge and how it prepares for future biosecurity threats.

The report Plan a course to what its author calls the “next normal” — live with the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a continuous threat that needs to be managed. This will require improvements in many ways, from improving surveillance of Covids and other pathogens to monitoring hospital taxation. From efforts to address building air quality to ongoing investment in antivirals and better vaccines. The authors also sought to provide people with respiratory symptoms with easy access to the test and, if they were positive for Covid or influenza, to provide a rapid prescription for the relevant antiviral drug. increase.

The 136-page report was produced by about 20 experts, many of whom advised the Biden administration on the Covid-19 policy. Thirty other experts contributed to the report entitled “Achieving and Maintaining the Next Normal Condition: A Roadmap for Living with Covid.”

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Luciana Borio, one of the authors of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Senior Fellow of Global Health, said: ..

The publication is an important time when the combination of reduced cases, deep-seated Covid’s malaise, and the dangerous and unprovoked wars caused by nuclear power pushes virus control and threatens to far postpone future pandemics. Come to

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“I think it’s worrisome,” said Ezekiel Emanual, vice president and other author of the University of Pennsylvania’s Global Initiative, and the risk that Russia’s attack on Ukraine would rob Covid’s response of attention and funding. rice field. “And part of the reason for laying this out is to emphasize that it’s a big mistake and a really, really serious flaw.”

The report states that the US response to Covid-19 has focused its preventive, palliative, and therapeutic efforts on Covid as one of many respiratory viruses, including influenza, from being directed solely at this single disease. It suggests that we need to move to what we do.

The author sketches three scenarios that the country may face in Covid-19 in the near future. One is optimistic, one is pessimistic, and the third is somewhere in between. Which is achieved is how much immunity to the SARS-2 virus (immunity acquired by vaccination or infection) is maintained, and mutations to the virus make the virus more infectious and / or more deadly. It depends on whether or not.

Experts predict that Covid’s annual death toll can be reduced to 15,000-30,000 in an optimistic scenario where immunity is maintained and the virus does not evolve to cause more serious illness. increase. On the other side of the scale, if more toxic mutants emerge and immunity is weakened (significantly higher incidence in certain years), deaths are nearly 10 times higher than in optimistic scenarios. I warn you that there is a possibility. In the interim scenario, they estimate that 30,000 to 100,000 people can die from Covid each year.

The group suggests that the annual death toll from respiratory infections such as Covid, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus should be reduced to about 60,000 per year. This is about the same number of deaths that the flu causes during the bad season of the flu.

Is it now possible to add the worst Covid of respiratory pathogens to an existing mixture and still maintain mortality to the worst pre-pandemic levels? Emmanuel said the improvements the group is looking for, such as improving indoor air quality, will help reduce flu and other flu-like illnesses, as well as the damage caused by Covid.

“We don’t go in the usual 2019,” he said. “It can be better. Our surveillance system will be better. Our indoor air quality system will be better. Our willingness to put up with it. [for] There are special public health precautions in the short term and around certain vulnerable populations. All of this should make a big difference in mortality. “

Borio argued that an important part of the puzzle that needs to be tackled is the quality of the indoor air. “In a way, it’s a bit like training a long marathon. You have to start somewhere. And you should start. It really isn’t, so you shouldn’t put this in a box that’s too stiff. . “

She also fears that as the pandemic appears to be mitigating, less attention will be paid to efforts to better prepare the country for the next infectious disease crisis, addressing Covid’s ongoing challenges. increase.

“It’s one thing that civilians decide to go ahead and travel and enjoy the summer,” Borio said. “But the government can’t do the same. The government needs to continue to monitor urgent variants and continue to develop important vaccines and treatments.”