WHO Foresees Pandemic Turning Endemic; Only 49% of COVID Positive Patients Hospitalized in NYC are Symptomatic of COVID

 By Yehudit Garmaise

Health experts have started to look ahead to when COVID will transform into a virus that not a pandemic, which spreads severe disease, hospitalization, and death worldwide, but is merely endemic, like the flu, which constantly circulates, without creating major concerns.

David Nabarro, MD, a special envoy of the World Health Organization (WHO), foresees the end of COVID, but he also warned that Omicron will likely bring a “difficult” three months ahead, he told Sky News, as he explained that the COVID virus tends to spike dramatically, come down, and then surge again every three or four months.

“We can see the end in sight, but we’re not there,” Dr. Nabarro explained. “The pattern with this virus is continuous surges, and living with COVID means being able to prepare for these surges and to react and really quickly when they occur.

“Life can go on, we can get the economy going again in many countries, but we just have to be really respectful of [and prepared for] the virus”

On Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was “cautiously optimistic” that Omicron cases in New York are starting to decrease, reported that the cases in the state numbered 82,094, which had decreased by a few hundred from the previous day and was 3,300 fewer than the single-day pandemic record of the 85,476 COVID cases the governor reported on Jan. 1.

COVID-19 hospitalizations statewide, which are the highest since April 2020, show some signs that they are starting to plateau, the governor said: a trend also cautiously reported by Northwell Health's senior vice president and physician-in-chief David Battinelli, MD, who called the leveling out of hospitalizations, “a hopeful sign.”

Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not think the US has yet seen Omicron’s peak, however she did emphasize, “Our hospitals right now are full of people who are unvaccinated and that you are 17 times more likely to be in a hospital and 20 times more likely to die if you’re unvaccinated compared to if you’re boosted.”

Photo: Flickr