In this summer of covid freedom, disease experts warn: 'The world needs a reality check' - The Washington Post

This summer, he is not surprised by the rise in infections across a country where many people haven’t gotten their shots and have returned to pre-pandemic behavior.

Coronavirus infections in the United States rose nearly 70 percent in a single week, officials reported Friday, and hospitalizations and deaths rose 36 percent and 26 percent, respectively.

Breakthrough infections among vaccinated people provide another reality check.

Many breakthrough infections will produce no symptoms.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided in May to track only breakthrough infections leading to hospitalization.

However, no vaccines are 100% effective at preventing illness in vaccinated people.

There will be a small percentage of fully vaccinated people who still get sick, are hospitalized, or die from COVID-19.

As the number of people who are vaccinated goes up, the number of breakthrough cases is also expected to increase,” the CDC said.

The delta variant has mutations that significantly enhance transmissibility, and it is responsible for a majority of new infections in the United States as it outcompetes other strains.

Amid these concerns are positive signs of long-term progress against covid-19, the illness caused by the virus.

This hints at how the pandemic may eventually play out: The virus would become endemic.

For people with at least partial immunity, covid-19 could become more like influenza or even a cold, which are caused by viruses that are at least somewhat familiar to our immune systems.

The dialing down of the lethality of the disease would be an example of history repeating itself: The 1918 influenza pandemic was caused by a virus that never vanished, but instead became the cause of the seasonal flu.

“We’re really teasing apart SARS-CoV-2 the virus from covid-19, the disease,” said Jennie Lavine, an Emory University researcher and lead author of a paper in Science earlier this year showing how the virus may become endemic.

There won’t be a single moment when the virus becomes endemic, she said.

And although Pfizer-BioNTech — the companies behind one of the three authorized vaccines in the United States — put the idea of boosters into play with a recent news release saying people may need them six to 12 months after being fully vaccinated, many experts, including Collins, regarded the announcement as premature.

Vaccine uptake is lowest among younger age groups that are also at lower risk of severe illness from covid-19, but they represent a growing percentage of cases in hospitals.

As Lavine points out, people have been told repeatedly for a year and a half that this virus is a potential killer.

For many of those people, it will be difficult to let go of covid-19 fears.

So there’s an unknown factor, and that is going to make it scary for a while because people are scared of the unknown,” said David W.

Meanwhile, many people are not scared at all, don’t feel vulnerable, or simply are done — done, done, done — with the pandemic.

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