This is the date an epidemiologist says the pandemic will end

Celine Gounder, MD, an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City, recently told The New York Times that although we won’t see as many COVID-induced deaths and hospitalizations this year as we saw last year, the country probably won’t be fully back to normal until some time next spring.

Why is the pandemic end date so far away?

Despite improved vaccine rollout in the U.S. and federal authorization for booster shots in the fall, most indicators suggest the COVID-19 pandemic won’t be ending any time soon. This estimation is primarily informed by the new more transmissive Delta strain and back-to-school season.

“A lot of schools across the country are just not taking this very seriously this year,” Dr.Gounder told The Times. “So you will see transmission from schools back into the community.”

According to research published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, young children are reliable vectors for the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) because they require direct care from older members of their households and are not old enough themselves to receive a vaccine.

Variants complicate recovery efforts

Dr. Gounder is not alone in her less than optimistic pandemic projection. Other leading virologists are concerned that the rapid pace at which SARS-CoV-2 mutates may blunt the efficacy of vaccines and clinical therapeutics in the future.

We’ve already seen this to some degree. All of the vaccines that are available to the public work against the Delta variant, but not as well as they do against previously documented strains.

Various news outlets have been reporting on a growing number of vaccinated people who tested positive for Delta—the strain that accounts for 99% of new cases in the U.S.

“The nature of Delta transmission means that the cases are going to go up in a lot of places at around the same time, but the consequences will be much, much worse in terms of absolute numbers in places with less vaccination,” Bill Hanage, MD, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health explained.

The plan for booster shots

COVID-19 booster shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are set to become available for all U.S. adults beginning this month.

During a recent White House Briefing, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, said that national health systems will try to ensure disproportionately affected populations have early access to booster shots in order to reduce the burden placed on hospitals ahead of surging cases.

“This includes our most vulnerable populations, like our health care providers, nursing home residents, and other seniors. We will also begin delivering booster shots directly to residents of long-term care facilities,” Dr. Murthy said.

There has been a noted pattern of decline in immunity for patients who received vaccine doses six months ago. This is expected to continue, as it’s still unclear how many vaccinated people plan on scheduling an appointment for a booster shot this year.

While vaccine efficacy is waning, new variants are emerging with properties that threaten the trajectory of national recovery.

Earlier this week, The World Health Organization (WHO) identified a new strain of the novel coronavirus called Mu, as a variant of interest.

Mu may induce more severe disease in affected populations, be more transmissible, and potentially more resistant to vaccines and therapeutics compared to previously documented strains.

Booster shots alone are not expected to curb the inclining rate of infections. Delta (India), like Mu (Columbia), originated in foreign countries. Emerging variants will have to be addressed on a global stage to protect any one nation in the long run.

Vaccinologists posit that we need 4 billion to 5 billion doses to immunize the world’s low- and middle-income countries by the end of 2021 in order to meaningfully bring cases down worldwide.

“The pandemic must be addressed globally — both on humanitarian grounds and for our self-interest in preventing the emergence of other variants,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “But so far, the U.S. government has not moved fast enough on setting a strategy for vaccinating the world, besides making some modest donations of vaccine doses and loosening of patent restrictions.”

How back-to-school season will impact cases

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the U.S. saw child cases increase from about 38,000 the week ending July 22 to more than 200,000 reported this past week. These numbers are continuing to increase.

Alongside COVID, children are contracting common respiratory syncytial viruses (RSV) as well.

“Because the absolute number of cases is so high, the absolute number of children who are coming into the hospital is high. It’s also the case that we are currently within a surge of RSV cases as well, respiratory syncytial virus cases,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a news briefing last week. “We’re seeing RSV rates similar to what we generally see in the winter months.”

The CDC recommends that all students, staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks while indoors. “I can tell you that most of the places where we’re seeing surges and outbreaks are in places that are not implementing our current guidance,” Walensky continued.

Some school districts are requiring their staff to show proof of vaccination before returning to work.

Dr. Anthony Fauci says that vaccines may be available for children under 12 before the holidays roll around again.

“I believe that mandating vaccines for children to appear in school is a good idea,” Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday. “We’ve done this for decades and decades, requiring polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis [vaccinations].”

The U.S. Department of Education is currently investigating five states – Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah, to determine whether or not their masks bans could potentially cause students with disabilities and underlying health conditions to be more vulnerable to COVID-19.

The end of COVID…but when?

In the event that COVID-19 ends up being endemic, or regularly occurring at certain seasons, the end of the pandemic will be marked by things other than case numbers.

Even now, many experts track the progress of our health crisis with consumer measures. In other words, a healthy box office, full airplanes, and busy restaurants may come before the novel coronavirus is eradicated completely.

Ideally, this would mean vaccines and health guidance is efficient enough to keep COVID hospitalizations and deaths very low.

It’s understandable that Americans are looking for some kind of signal that business can continue as usual, but the variables are too numerous to say anything conclusively at any one juncture.

“We can get through this winter and get, really, the majority—overwhelming majority—of the 90 million people who have not been vaccinated, vaccinated, I hope we can start to get some good control in the spring of 2022,” Dr. Fauci continued.

“As we get into the spring, we could start getting back to a degree of normality, namely reassuming the things that we were hoping we could do—restaurants, theaters, that kind of thing.”

Read more about COVID variants here.