The Innovation: Academician Huang Jianping of Lanzhou University predicts that the new crown pandemic will end by the end of 2023

Since its outbreak in late 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has infected nearly 500 million people worldwide and caused more than 6.

The latest round of outbreaks is caused by the Omicron mutant strain, which was first identified in South Africa on November 11, 2021

So, how will the COVID-19 pandemic caused by Omicron develop and when will it end?

Recently, the team of Academician Huang Jianping of Lanzhou University published a paper entitled: Is omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 coming to an end? review article

Globally, Omicron is responsible for a sharp rise in new cases of COVID-19 around January 2022

The high transmission rate of Omicron has accelerated the spread of the epidemic.

Although Omicron has shown unprecedented rates of global spread, it has caused a lower case fatality rate than any previous mutant strain

With the emergence and mass spread of Omicron, there are two different perspectives on the future development of the COVID-19 pandemic:

One view is that the emergence of Omicron may be a signal that the COVID-19 pandemic is coming to an end

The model is based on the following assumptions:

1.

2.

3.

4.

The model uses real epidemic data to make relevant predictions, so the prediction results can reflect the real development of the current COVID 19 pandemic

The forecast results of Huang Jianping's team suggest that Omicron will continue to affect the world this year, and the COVID-19 pandemic will not end until the end of 2023 (around November 2023)

The blue curve represents the predicted trend of the COVID-19 pandemic, we can see that the overall trend is declining, except for a small increase in April 2022 due to seasonal factors, after which the daily number of new confirmed cases will decline rapidly

According to projections, by the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in November 2023, the total number of confirmed cases worldwide will reach at least 750 million
.

The research team also pointed out that although the forecast results show that the pandemic will end in November 2023, this is based on the current pandemic development
.
If mutant strains that are more likely to spread follow, the predictions will be adjusted accordingly
.

For different countries, the time for the end of the pandemic is not the same.
The forecast results show that countries with severe epidemics such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy will show a sharp decline after April 2022.
end this year
.
In countries such as South Korea and Vietnam, the pandemic will continue into next year
.
This also reminds us that we cannot predict whether COVID-19 will end just based on the development of the epidemic in some countries
.

Although the Covid-19 vaccine has been successfully rolled out in some countries and large populations have so far been fully vaccinated, it does not mean that we are safe and immune to Covid-19
.
In fact, the vaccine's ability to protect against Omicron infection declined significantly
.

Huang Jianping's team also made predictions about the new crown epidemic in mainland China and Hong Kong, China, where outbreaks occurred in March 2022
.
But compared with other countries, the new crown epidemic in mainland China is much smaller, and it is likely to be contained around April 2022
.

The research team also pointed out that the main reason for the low number of confirmed cases in mainland China is the implementation of strict restrictions
.
Therefore, until a more effective vaccine is developed, we should still comply with epidemic prevention requirements, wear medical masks, and limit large gatherings to slow the spread of the new crown epidemic and end the spread of Omicron
.

Original source:

Zhao, Y.
, Huang, J.
, Zhang, L.
, et al.
Is omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 coming to an end? The Innovation (2022), doi: https://doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
xinn.
2022.
100240.