09 Feb UCHealth: “Omicron has peaked. Will the COVID-19 pandemic ever end?”
We curated this excellent article by Todd Neff from UCHealth Today. The title:”Omicron has peaked. Will the COVID-19 pandemic ever end?” The story features health experts weighing in on “pandemic” vs. “endemic,” the future of COVID-19 immunity, where coronavirus vaccination may head and if COVID will ever end.
Go here for more intel from UCHealth.
Dr. Jonathan Samet, dean of the Colorado School of Public Health and leader of the Colorado COVID-19 Modeling Group, helps answer the question, “Will COVID ever end?”
The omicron surge has peaked and appears to be on a double-black-diamond downslope. Three major metro Denver counties dropped mask mandates in early February. Statewide hospitalizations from this omicron-driven coronavirus wave peaked at 1,676 in mid-January and stood at 1,012 as of Feb. 8, a number the Colorado COVID-19 Modeling Group expects to fall to below 500 by the end of February.
Vaccination is a big part of the story: 68% of the state’s residents are “fully” vaccinated, which is among the top one-third nationally. Those quotation marks are there because, with a coronavirus variant as contagious as omicron, it’s really about the COVID-19 vaccine booster, and only about 48% of residents have had that third shot.
Perhaps a bigger part of the story is just how many of us have been infected with omicron and how many more of us will soon join them. The aforementioned modeling group estimated that, as of Jan. 25, about 42% of Colorado residents had already gotten omicron. Despite cases having peaked, the ride back down will take about a month, during which that figure will rise to 65% by late February, the group estimates. By midmonth, they estimate, 80% of residents will, through SARS-CoV-2 exposure, vaccination, or both, be immune to the variant. The end of the coronavirus pandemic feels near.
The end of coronavirus felt near after the widespread introduction of vaccines a year ago, too, and then came the delta variant, and then omicron. Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, we have learned not to declare victory over this cursed microscopic foot-massager. So where are we, and where might the coronavirus pandemic be headed? To find out, UCHealth Today talked to three UCHealth and University of Colorado School of Medicine experts: Dr. Jonathan Samet, dean of the Colorado School of Public Health and leader of the Colorado COVID-19 Modeling Group; Dr. David Beckham, a CU School of Medicine virologist and infectious disease specialist; and Ross Kedl, PhD, a CU School of Medicine immunologist and vaccine specialist. All work and do research on the Anschutz Medical Campus.
Will COVID ever end or go away?…
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