When will the coronavirus end

At the end of 2019, the world learned about a new dangerous infection. In 2020, a pandemic was declared, which means that they recognized the especially dangerous status of the virus.

Komsomolskaya Pravda has collected different opinions and forecasts of experts about when the coronavirus will end.

Optimistic forecasts

“Omicron” – the last chord

Greek scientist and environmental engineering researcher Demosthenes Saryannis calculated that the Omicron strain would be the last mutation of the coronavirus and the pandemic would end as early as February 2022.

– The mathematical model of the development of the “unbridled wave” of the pandemic shows that on February 20, a month after the peak of the Omicron wave, its decline will end. Then the end of Omicron will come, and a very large part of our society will be immune, says a professor at Aristotle University.

Looking forward to summer

– In the summer of 2022, the situation will stabilize, – said epidemiologist, doctor of medical sciences Mikhail Favorov in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda radio in October 2020¹. Well, we have the opportunity to test the accuracy of long-term forecasts. A well-known epidemiologist of world renown today says that Omicron could be a harbinger of the end of the pandemic. The virus in the new version, although it has become more contagious, but the number of deaths has decreased. And this, according to the scientist, is an indicator of the adaptation of the pathogen.

The vaccine will help

The head of the pharmaceutical corporation Moderna, Stephane Bancel, gives the pandemic another year. After its completion, young people will need to be vaccinated against coronavirus every three years, the elderly – every year.

Well-known pediatrician Yevgeny Komarovsky also considers mass vaccination to be the key to stopping the pandemic.

Restrained

If there are no new mutations

Moscow State University also calculated the deadline for the end of the coronavirus pandemic – the beginning of 2023. According to the rector of Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichy, new mutations can make their own adjustments to the forecast, but so far such mathematical models have not failed in calculations. In a forecast article written with academician Askar Akaev, the scientist predicts a compromise that can be reached by early 2023: “The virus will come down to an acceptable level – either a very mild form or a small number of infections.” 

Do not interfere with politics!

Vitaly Zverev, microbiologist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also admits that people will learn to live with the coronavirus, like with the flu. 

“The coronavirus epidemic will end faster than everyone thinks,” Zverev said, noting that the virus seems to be changing for the better. The academician says that by the end of 2022 we can cope with the situation, “if some decisions are not made that have nothing to do with the fight against coronavirus.” The scientist explained that many use this topic for political purposes – someone exaggerates the scale of the disaster, while someone, on the contrary, assures that the coronavirus does not exist. 

hope for immunity

Scientists say that the pandemic will end when population immunity to coronavirus reaches 50-67% – these data were published by Saada B. Omer, MD, and colleagues from Yale University, in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Population immunity occurs in two cases:

• more than half of the world’s population should be ill;
• at least 60% of the world’s population should be vaccinated (but more often they say about 70%).

In Russia, as of mid-January, 47% of the population is fully vaccinated against coronavirus.

Disappointing

Omicron will not end

There are no scientific prerequisites for believing that the pandemic will end with the omicron strain, says Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya Center.

“It will be a very long time, until population immunity is developed in the majority of the world’s population,” the Russian scientist explained on the air of Russia 24.

Gunzburg added that people will have to be vaccinated or have been ill with covid more than once in order to have enough antibodies that protect against new mutations. Especially if the vaccination will be slow.

five to ten

“There is no pandemic that ends quickly,” says Budi Gunadi Sadikan, Indonesian health minister. – The shortest period, as far as I know, is five years, but a pandemic can last a decade. 

Epidemiologist, writer, WHO medical officer Larry Brilliant believes that we are closer to the beginning of the pandemic than to its end. “Until we vaccinate everyone in 200 plus countries, new strains will continue to emerge,” says Larry Brilliant, who predicted the coronavirus epidemic back in 2006.². 16 years ago, he argued that in 2020 a virus would come from Asia, for which there would be no vaccine or medicine, up to a billion people could get sick (today there are more than 330 million sick), up to 165 million die (now the death rate from coronavirus is more than 5,5 million).

What experts thought at the very beginning of the pandemic

In 2-3 months, maximum – until the end of the year

In the spring of 2020, according to the most optimistic forecasts, the coronavirus should have ended in 2-3 months. For example, Zhong Nanshan, head of the Chinese State Health Committee, believed that as early as June 2020, the critical situation would be overcome. Those who become ill after this date will not disappear, but there will be significantly fewer of them.

Some experts gave the coronavirus a little more time. So, in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, a former military microbiologist, reserve medical colonel Mikhail Supotnitsky said that the coronavirus would end along with the calendar year 2020. The expert explained that epidemics are a cyclical thing. That is, such large-scale viruses, like the military, have everything according to a clear plan and schedule: they start locally, then spread over the earth and then fade away. Often even before a vaccine is invented.

A note of healthy pessimism in forecasts about when the coronavirus will end was introduced in the spring of 2020 by Michael Ryan, head of the WHO emergency program. In an interview with overseas media, the functionary called the end of the epidemic in the summer an unlikely forecast. The expert did not announce any approximate dates, he only made a reservation that if the infection could still be overcome before the end of August, it would be a gift of fate.

Some experts were inclined to believe that the invention of a vaccine would make a significant contribution to the victory over the disease.

Coronavirus will end when all countries are ill

In a conversation with kp.ru, Candidate of Medical Sciences, clinical pharmacologist Andrey Kondrakhin explained the mechanism of the behavior of viruses. The expert did not give a clear timeframe, but from his words, one could draw the following conclusion: all major countries must pass the COVID-2019 test.

We cannot say for sure that the coronavirus will end anytime soon. Let us turn to the experience of the Chinese comrades. They had a clear curve: the peak of cases and then the decline in the epidemic. A pandemic is declared when an infection spreads to the entire globe. The rest of the planet has not yet passed this peak, – Andrey Kondrakhin reasoned then.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the case curve was on the rise in Europe. First, the rise up, and then stop: the number of infected equals the number of recovered – this is the peak. It may be lengthy. After that, it goes down.

Will never end

All experts were inclined to believe that the acute phase in which the coronavirus was at the beginning of the pandemic would pass. Another thing is that the disease can hide and then be reborn into something new.

For example, the Spanish flu, also known as the “Spanish flu”, with which almost a third of the world’s population fell ill at the beginning of the 2009th century, almost a hundred years later was reborn into a “swine flu”. Recall that it was declared a pandemic in 200. There were over 19 thousand infected. And what, how long have you heard today that someone was ill with this virus? Then the “bird flu” happened, which is still periodically detected in birds around the world, including Russia, but there are no sick people left. The same developments are expected with respect to COVID-XNUMX.

Why are forecasts different?

The thing is that the virus is an unpredictable substance. Its development is described by mathematical models, graphs are built, but it still acts in its own way. All countries at the beginning of the pandemic joined the fight: they introduced isolation, disinfection and restrictions. But people continued to spread the virus around the world without knowing it. Therefore, clear data in forecasts about when the coronavirus will end is hardly possible.

Popular questions and answers

We discussed with experts issues that are still relevant, although we have been living in a pandemic for the second year.

Sources of

1. The COVID-19 pandemic will end by summer 2022. But we will not return to the old life. https://www.kp.ru/daily/217193.5/4301980/
2. The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What’s Coming https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-interview-larry-brilliant-smallpox-epidemiologist/