JAMA: Will the new crown become a seasonal epidemic? Experts point to three major risk factors

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Christopher J.

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The real environment is much more complicated.

Previously, based on the estimated value of the new coronavirus R0 in most studies of about 2-3, it was speculated that about 50%-67% of the population needed to be immune to the new crown to achieve herd immunity.

Can herd immunity be achieved? There are three key factors

Since the end of last year, a factor that has attracted much attention that affects the immune effect is whether the new crown mutant strain will make the vaccine invalid.

Although the current Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, Moderna Covid-19 vaccine, and AstraZeneca/Oxford University Covid-19 vaccine have shown high protection against COVID-19 in the real world, the effectiveness of preventing infection is usually slightly lower by 20%.

At present, three laboratory studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine pointed out that for the mutant strain B.

The second key issue is that it is likely that there will not be enough people vaccinated.

Third, what is worrying is that with the continuous mutation of the new coronavirus, to what extent can the previous infection prevent the second infection of the new mutant? Novavax’s report showed that in the Phase 2b clinical trial in South Africa, the incidence of COVID-19 in the placebo group (mainly from infection with the B.

At this time, considering the first two factors in combination, whether the immunity brought by the vaccine can reach the threshold of herd immunity still needs to be treated with caution.

Five strategies to deal with potential "seasonal outbreaks"

Some research models have shown that even if the B.

Therefore, the two experts proposed in the JAMA article that if new mutant strains continue to appear, the "seasonal outbreak" of the new crown epidemic may become the norm.

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summary

Whether COVID-19 will eventually become a long-term seasonal disease, we currently do not have a definite answer, but this possibility is hard to avoid.

In another article on the current situation of the epidemic published by JAMA, two infectious disease experts from Emory University and the University of Michigan also believe that COVID-19 may be in some areas in the future.
Disappear, but continue to exist in other regions, and may also exist in the form of endemic or seasonal outbreaks in the long term.

In the past year, the new crown has changed the world.
In the future, we still need to continuously adjust epidemic surveillance, medical and public health measures to prepare for seasonal epidemics.

Reference

[1] urray CJL, Piot P.
(2021).
The Potential Future of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Will SARS-CoV-2 Become a Recurrent Seasonal Infection? JAMA, DOI: 10.
1001/jama.
2021.
2828

[2] del Rio C, Malani P.
(2021).
COVID-19 in 2021—Continuing Uncertainty.
JAMA, DOI:10.
1001/jama.
2021.
3760