Why Covid Shouldn’t Allow It To Be Popular In New Zealand

opinion: As New Zealand switches from exclusion to oppression COVID-19 Endemic and part of our lives do not understand or ignore what this really means.

Exclusion is a word that always needs attention because it means eradication. However, we have only eradicated one human disease, smallpox, so far, and it is closely related to several other diseases.

For some, the end of removal means that the virus needs to spread. But semantics are less important than policies. If not eliminated, we must aim for containment, mop-up, near-zero reduction, and prevention of this pandemic.

Because we certainly cannot live with the unique SARS-CoV-2.

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Delta variants spread sinisterly, and without control, all infected people averaged six more, then 36, 216, 1296, 7776, 46,656, and five million in New Zealand in three more cycles. It will be more than twice as much as.

The virus needs to be eradicated or the number of cases needs to be very low. Border security, masking, distance, foam, contact tracing, human and wastewater testing, and vaccination must be maintained to include the case number.

In the current outbreak of Delta, more than 95% of infected individuals were either unvaccinated or received only the first dose.

Delta is not like the flu

Our most common endemic infections include the common cold (caused by hundreds of different viruses that circulate freely) and influenza (caused by a group of influenza viruses).

Those who dismiss mild cases of Covid-19 as “not worse than flu” forget how terrifying the flu cases really are. They may also forget that the case fatality rate of influenza is about 0.1%, even with effective vaccination. 500 people every year in New Zealand..

However, it seems that some people are hoping that Covid-19 will behave and learn to become endemic.Some people Welcome this, “When the disease becomes manageable, it becomes endemic.”

Not true. Being manageable is not part of the definition of endemic. Illness becomes endemic when it is more or less always present in the population. It doesn’t matter if it’s manageable or not.

The basic reproduction number (R0) of seasonal influenza is about 1.5. This means that one infected person spreads the disease to less than two others on average. That’s why it takes so little time to break the chain of transmission. The annual influenza pandemic is reduced because there are effective vaccines and seasonal conditions during the summer are less favorable to the survival of the virus.

However, as already mentioned, the R0 for the Delta variant is at least 6. This will be as low as you will get in the future. If a new variant replaces Delta, it will be because it is more communicable.

There is no season for Covid-19, no interruption of infection, no loss of infectivity. We have been struggling with this virus for 18 months around the world, with seasonal spikes.

School and business closures that are part of the new normal

If Covid-19 becomes endemic, one or two people will not get sick at work or at home. There are waves and clusters, and outbreaks in multiple regions. Schools and businesses are closed for days or even weeks because too many people are ill.It will sacrifice the trillions of the world – think about what it has already done Global supply chain..

The burden on our medical system is immeasurable. It does not involve a predictable, modest increase in hospitalization. Waves and clusters characterize endemic Covid-19 in the same way that it characterizes a pandemic Covid-19, overwhelming local medical care without warning.

If Covid-19 is outbreak, Merck’s New antiviral drug molnupiravir Much cheaper than monoclonal antibodies, easier to store, easier to transport, and can be taken home by people, it is an important addition to the toolkit.

Trials that have not yet been published suggest that treatment is possible Cut hospitalization in half, Significantly improves the outcome of those who are already infected. However, it does not reduce the number of cases by even one.

Never treat – only prevention, public health measures, and vaccination reduce the number of cases. People who are less ill and are being treated at home may spread the virus even more.

When the Covid-19 becomes epidemic, more people will die if the medical system is unable to keep up with the latest waves.

Long-term costs to health and economy

Even if Covid-19 can be reduced to influenza severity (in the case of individuals), it has about five times the R0 of influenza and is endemic that can be transmitted and spread while still fully vaccinated. Delta still means thousands of hospitalizations and deaths each year.

Only four cycles of delta infection can result in more than 250 times more cases than four cycles of influenza.

Every year when Covid-19 becomes epidemic, many of us know dead people.

When Covid-19 becomes endemic, more than one-third of unvaccinated cases, even asymptomatic, Symptoms after a few months.. Influenza leaves little permanent damage. Longcovid damages insulin-producing cells in the lungs, heart, brain, hearing, vision, and pancreas. Causes diabetes..

The cost of Covid-19 is much higher than the cost of influenza. This is due not only to the high number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, but also to long-term damage and disability.

When Covid-19 becomes endemic, we live in stressful, often overwhelming medical systems, schools are exposed to unpredictable closures, unsafe workplaces, economic turmoil, children’s threats, Death and disability are at a permanent higher level than we know – probably for decades.

As long as we continue border security and public health measures and achieve near-universal immunization, we don’t care what the current strategy is called. Otherwise, thousands of New Zealanders will be hospitalized, die, or experience long covids.

Ultimately, you will not be able to live with the endemic Covid-19, so you will need a sterile vaccine (a vaccine that prevents people from getting infected).

John Donne Potter is a professor at the Haurora and Health Research Center at Massey University. Graham Le Gros is the director and group leader of the Malaghan Institute of Medical Sciences at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington. Rod Jackson is a professor of epidemiology at the University of Auckland.

This article was originally published conversation..Read the original paper..