|
Expert Group Forecasts That
SARS-CoV-2 Is Here To Stay
Enhanced
Outbreak Control Strategy Is Proposed To Lessen Impact And Return To
Relative Normalcy
Writing
in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Larry Brilliant an
epidemiologist and Chief Executive Officer of Pandefense Advisory and
five other health professionals with varying backgrounds and expertise
in epidemiology, infectious disease and other subject matters have
assessed the status of the pandemic in the world, the international
response to it, and given their opinions of what the most likely
future of the disease will be. The article is entitled “The Forever
Virus--A Strategy for the Long Fight Against COVID-19”.
Here
To Stay
They
begin their assessment exclaiming “It is time to say it out loud: the
virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic is not going away…Rather than die
out, the virus will likely ping-pong back and forth across the globe
for years to come…The virus is here to stay”
The
authors advance several reasons for believing the virus will become
endemic, including the growth of the virus in more than a dozen animal
species, the practical difficulties in reaching herd immunity through
vaccination, and the circulation of variants.
The
authors mince no words in explaining how the world got into this
situation. They identify leaders in multiple countries who showed
parochialism and political insecurity and thus downplayed the crisis,
ignored the science, and rejected international cooperation. “The
result of all the chaos, delay, and stupidity was a largely
uncontrolled spread and a heightened death toll.”
Outbreak Control Revisited
To meet
the challenge of an endemic situation, the authors propose to modify
and update the surveillance and containment strategy or ring
vaccination strategy that was used successfully to eradicate smallpox.
According to the authors, “the key lies in treating vaccines as
transferable resources that can be rapidly deployed where they are
needed most.” In short, this is an outbreak control strategy which
will require an enhanced capacity to detect cases, sequence viral
genomes, notify exposed persons, and collaborate more effectively
between countries.
US
Leadership
The US
is tagged for being in the best position to take on the global
leadership in this targeted outbreak control strategy. In part this is
because the US is no longer seeing cases nationwide and could begin to
deploy vaccine to areas with high infection rates to carry out basic
outbreak control activities. Unlike smallpox, SARS-CoV-2 produces a
high percentage of asymptomatic cases making case identification
difficult. However, the authors believe that “powerful new tools for
detecting outbreaks and developing vaccines exist today that were not
available during smallpox eradication. These tools as described by the
authors can provide the “situational awareness” in real time needed to
effectively use an outbreak control strategy. Thus, “If the United
States solves the puzzle of controlling outbreaks of COVID-19 at home
and shields itself against importations of the virus from abroad, it
will have a blueprint that it can share globally. It should do so,
turning outward to help lead what will be the largest and most
complicated disease-control campaign in human history.
In
concluding their overview, the authors state that “Sustaining our way
of life thus requires deep changes in the way we interact with the
natural world, the way we think about prevention, and the way we
respond to global health emergencies.”
Denial Stage
The
authors frame the losses the world has experienced because of COVID-19
in terms of the five stages of grief that have been described whenever
loss occurs. They claim the
world is currently stuck in denial of the fact that the
pandemic is far from over. This is only the first stage and they urge
everyone to move ahead to a final stage of finding meaning in the
devastation by doing more to mitigate this pandemic and preventing the
next one.
To read the article in Foreign Affaris, visit:
https://fam.ag/2TrMIBY ■
|