The Northern Hemisphere is entering its third winter of the coronavirus pandemic, and scientists are warning both weakened governments and populations to prepare for new waves of COVID-19, Reuters reported on Monday, citing Agerpres.

This winter, the United States alone could see up to a million cases of infection every day, said Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Healthcare Metrology and Evaluation (IHME), an independent group at the University of Washington that has been monitoring the pandemic.

This figure is roughly double the current daily amount.

Evolution in Europe

In the UK and Europe, scientists are predicting a series of waves of COVID-19 as people spend more time at home in the colder months, this time largely without masks or physical distancing restrictions.

However, while the number of cases may rise again in the coming months, it is unlikely that the number of deaths and hospitalizations will rise at the same rate, experts say, helped by vaccination and booster doses, earlier infection, easier options and the availability of highly effective treatments. for COVID-19.

“Those at greatest risk are those who have never been exposed to the virus, and there are almost none left,” Murray said.

These projections raise new questions about when countries will transition from the emergency phase of COVID-19 to endemic disease status, where communities with high vaccination rates experience smaller, possibly seasonal, outbreaks.

Is the pandemic over?

Many experts predicted that this transition would begin in early 2022, but the emergence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus with important mutations has upset these estimates.

The question “Is the pandemic over?” need to be “set aside,” said Adam Kuharski, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

According to him and others, COVID-19 is becoming an endemic threat that continues to have a high morbidity rate. “Someone once told me that the definition of endemic is that life becomes a little bit more complicated,” he added.

The risk of an even more dramatic wave of the epidemic

An unpredictable aspect is the possibility of a new variant emerging that will surpass the current dominant Omicron sub-variants.

According to a recent report by the European office of the World Health Organization (WHO), if this variant also causes more serious disease and can evade previous immunity, it would be a “worst-case scenario.”

“All scenarios (with new options) indicate the potential for a large future wave at a level as bad as or worse than the 2020/2021 wave,” said the report, based on a model by Imperial College London.

Many disease experts interviewed by Reuters said that making predictions about COVID-19 has become much more difficult because many people rely on quick home tests that are not reported to public health officials, so infection rates remain unknown. BA.5, the Omicron subvariant that is currently causing peak cases in many regions, is highly transmissible, meaning that many patients hospitalized for other illnesses may test positive for COVID-19 and be among the serious cases.

The great unknowns

Scientists say other unknowns complicate their predictions, such as the question of the potential increased effectiveness of the combination of vaccination and exposure to COVID-19 (so-called hybrid immunity) and the effectiveness of booster campaigns.

“Anyone who says they can predict the future of this pandemic is either overconfident or lying,” said David Dowdy, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US. Experts are closely monitoring developments in Australia, where hospitals are overwhelmed by flu season combined with COVID-19.

They say it is possible that Western countries will face a similar picture after several quiet flu seasons. “If it happens there, it can happen here. Let’s get ready for flu season in the truest sense of the word,” said John McCauley, director of the World Influenza Center at the Francis Crick Institute in London.

According to the WHO, every country should fight new waves with all the tools in the pandemic arsenal – from vaccination to measures such as testing and physical distancing or protective masks.

Israel’s government recently suspended routine testing of travelers for COVID-19 at its international airport, but is prepared to resume the practice “within days” if it faces a major surge in cases, Sharon Alroy said. Preis, director of the health agency of the Ministry of Health of Israel.

“When there’s a wave of infections, we have to wear masks, we have to get tested,” she said, adding that “this is living with COVID-19.”