Yahoo Finance Pandemic needs to be addressed with more caution, less fear: Experts
Experts broadly agree the world is in a different phase of COVID-19, even if some disagree it is now endemic. While that requires remaining vigilant as new variants emerge, it also requires less fear and adrenaline, according to Sylvie Briand, director of the Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases Department at the World Health Organization.
"It's important to slightly modify the narrative as well. I think the initial narrative was really a narrative of fear — which is normal," Briand told Yahoo Finance at the World Vaccine Congress Europe.
"I think now what we should do is reduce this fear content, because people are (experiencing) some fatigue, and at some point...you just don't have enough adrenaline anymore to be moved by the fear, "Briand added.
Instead, the fatigue that has set in is leaving room for complacency, evidenced by relaxed mitigation measures and low bivalent booster uptake.
"That complacency will catch Americans off guard," Dr. Greg Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic's Vaccine Research Group, told Yahoo Finance.
That could spell trouble globally, as Europe begins to see a surge of Covid cases, spurring a return of mitigation measures like masking indoors.
Dr. Ofer Levy, Director of the Precision Vaccines Program and infectious disease expert at Boston Children's Hospital, said the U.S. could similarly move to bring back mitigation measures if need be, but it remains to be seen what winter has in store.
Exacerbating the problem is the reduction in testing.
Adam Kucharski, an infectious disease expert and co-director of the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Response at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told Yahoo Finance the reduction in testing could mean longer reaction times to potential variant threats.
"What happens if you have less data is your ability to act on it becomes more sluggish," he said.
For example, with the Delta wave, because there was enough testing and sequencing of variants, countries like the U.S. were able to prepare based on what others like India and the U.K. were experiencing.
Without that data and the value gained from the insight, it will be harder to detect when a problematic variant is coming. But, Kucharski said, he understands that the data stream from test sequencing is costly to maintain.
Briand echoed a similar sentiment, noting that it was expensive to maintain the level of testing — through federally-funded testing sites and the cost of processing tests — that had been in place at the start of the pandemic.
That includes more efficient testing in order to still detect variants. To do so would rely on a surveillance system like the one used for flu — where dedicated sites are selected to provide test results.
Already, a network of 26 labs has been set up, but because Covid is a new disease, it will still take time to monitor well, Briand said.
In addition, she said, the world needs to start thinking of treating Covid quickly after testing. So a new test-and-treat system should be implemented globally, as more treatments are discovered that can be effective.
But for now, keeping a watch on the level of cases and hospitalization remains key. Kucharski said Europe and the U.S. are in for a hard winter, with both flu and covid circulating. And even if the surges don't reach the peaks of last winter, they can still place significant pressure on healthcare systems.
"I think we have to be careful that we don't normalize baselines," he said.
Especially since, even two years later, the scientific and medical communities are still learning about the impacts of Covid on the body, Poland said.
"What America and Western Europe have not latched on to yet are the increasing amounts of data showing that even mild and moderate infection has significant consequences to it. This is a biologically dangerous virus," he said.
The longer-term economic impacts for that are greater than people realize, he added.
"How is this going to play out in long-term health care and economic costs?" Poland asked.
That's a question that has yet to be answered.
Follow Anjalee on Twitter @AnjKhem
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