When will the coronavirus become endemic?

An example of this is malaria in many parts of Africa, as is influenza in Europe. The corona virus would not go away, but in the future it will meet an increasingly immunized and therefore less vulnerable population.

Spain and Great Britain want to treat the virus like flu soon. That would have far-reaching consequences for dealing with infection numbers and containment regulations.

In view of the high number of infections, Germany is also pursuing a different strategy than in previous waves. Researchers from the University of Oxford attested that Germany has the strictest corona rules in the world – with measures such as 2G plus, the 2G and 3G rules and the obligation to wear masks. However, the vast majority of facilities are still open, so a general lockdown is not foreseeable at the moment.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) speaks of a “new phase of the pandemic”, in which the pure number of cases faded into the background. The virologist Christian Drosten also sees Omikron as a “chance” to get out of crisis mode – provided there is broad immunity. However, other countries are already much further along.

Spain demands control like a flu

In Spain, where 90 percent of the population aged 12 and over is vaccinated, the government is already preparing to treat the pandemic like the flu in the near future. This means that every case is no longer registered, but that the overall development is only followed at representative locations in the country by a few hospitals, doctors and health centers.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez assured that this would not happen “from one day to the next” and “with all scientific rigor” and in cooperation with the EU. In no case should the changes be made before the end of the sixth wave currently running in Spain with the Omicron variant.

In Great Britain, too, more and more politicians and scientists are calling for Corona to be treated like the flu. Instead of mass testing and mass vaccination, a more targeted strategy is needed, said Clive Dix, the former head of the British Vaccination Commission, the “Observer”. “We should consider when to stop testing.”

He also recommended stopping mass vaccination after the ongoing booster campaign. Instead of giving the entire population a fourth vaccination, in future only older and particularly vulnerable people should be vaccinated – as is already the case with the flu vaccination.

In addition to vaccinations, the omicron virus itself ensures greater immunization in the population. Because according to the current state of knowledge, an omicron infection also protects against the delta virus. The hope is that this could also be the case with future variants.

Britain could be the first country to emerge from the pandemic

Great Britain was the first country in Europe to be hit by the omicron wave. In the meantime, the peak seems to have been overcome: the number of infections is falling, hospital admissions are stagnating. Only the subsequent number of deaths is still increasing, but it is likely to fall soon.

Britain is the closest of any country to overcoming the pandemic, if not already over it, said David Heymann of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Science at an event hosted by the Chatham House think tank this week. More than 95 percent of Britons now have antibodies against the corona virus. The disease is endemic.

The government is also optimistic. “I hope that we will be one of the first major economies to show the world how to move from pandemic to endemic,” Education Minister Nadhim Zahawi told the BBC.

The World Health Organization (WHO) welcomes the debates. “We need these discussions now,” WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan told Handelsblatt. “It’s good if governments are preparing for the transition to the endemic phase now.” Corona would then just be another respiratory disease.

However, it is not yet clear whether this will be the case this summer. New worrying variants could prevent this. And no single country can go into an endemic phase if the pandemic is still raging in the rest of the world. That’s why 70 percent of the world’s population needs to be vaccinated as soon as possible. The WHO has set this as its goal by the middle of the year.

US immunologist Fauci nourishes hope for an end to the pandemic

The American immunologist and presidential advisor Anthony Fauci made a similar statement in the “Spiegel”. If very many people were vaccinated or recovered and occasionally given a booster, the world could reach a situation “where people get infected but only get a cold”.

At the same time, he warned against thinking the pandemic is over. “Perhaps that will be the case soon, but it is not certain yet.” For example, the virus could mutate again in countries with a very low vaccination rate – which is mainly found in poorer nations – “and it is conceivable that the next variant is not only more contagious, but also causes more severe disease progression,” says the US expert.

The European Medicines Agency Ema also warned against dismissing Omikron as a “mild disease”. Nevertheless, Marco Cavaleri, head of Ema’s Department of Biological Health Threats and Vaccine Strategy, says: “We need to think about how to move from the current pandemic to a more endemic situation.”

Similar to the British expert Dix, Cavaleri is critical of continuous booster vaccinations: “Boosters can be carried out once or maybe twice, but we cannot assume that they should be repeated constantly.” A booster vaccination every four months could possibly improve the immune system of the people overload and lead to overtiredness in the population.

Critics point to a higher death rate from omicron than from the flu

In Italy, high-ranking experts are calling for Covid-19 to be declared a simple flu as early as the omicron wave and for the publication of daily new infections to be abolished – and to switch to a weekly rhythm. “The number of new infections says nothing,” said Andrea Costa recently, State Secretary in the Ministry of Health. “You have to go into more detail about the number of hospitalizations and the occupancy of the intensive care units.”

In Italy, more than 2.5 million people are currently infected with the virus, more than ever before. Despite this, the situation in the hospitals is still under control. Almost 1700 patients are in the intensive care units, in the two previous waves there were almost 4000. The government therefore wants to discuss new rules this week. The traffic light system, which has been dividing the regions into different corona warning levels for more than a year, could also be phased out.

For Cesare Cislaghi, ex-president of the Association of Italian Epidemiologists, the abolition of the daily corona numbers would mean a loss of control. Even if the mortality rate of the omicron variant is now in the range of annual influenza, the two pathogens are still not comparable. “Omicron is three to seven times as deadly as influenza among the unvaccinated,” calculates the data specialist Matteo Villa from the think tank Ispi.

The comparison with the annual flu can only be drawn if the entire population is really vaccinated. Another point: “The flu catches between 15 and 20 percent of the population in a winter,” says Villa. Omikron, on the other hand, will infect 100 percent of people without a suitable counter-strategy – “and in a very short time”.

Even if the lethality is in the range of the flu, not only does the number of infected people quintuple, but also the number of dead. “On average, 15,000 to 20,000 people die from the flu in Italy every year,” says Villa. Translated to Omicron, that would mean 100,000 deaths – “as many Covid victims as there were in the whole of 2020.”

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