A hundred years ago, Spanish Flu killed 50 million people and took five years to burn itself out. And that was in a much smaller total global population, just 1.8 billion at the time, and when crossing oceans was strictly for the rich and took at least a week. Now, Covid-19 is raging through a global population of 7.8 billion people, and with far faster and more heavily used transport links between all parts of the globe.

Realistically, when do you think the pandemic will finally be officially over?

Note: I've no agenda in asking this, just wondering if there's any kind of consensus hope for an end-date. My main personal worry is whether it will be realistically feasible to attend UMD25 in Vegas in 2023, given risks of sudden transport lockdowns and/or expensive hotel quarentine requirements if new strains emerge. Though of course that could happen even outside a pandemic situation.

(note UMD randomises poll options so these year dates won't appear in order - read carefully to make sure you get the one you mean)

I say 2022. Honestly as people get vaccinated and unvaccinated people die, the pandemic is ending. Already at least here in Japan it feels near to end. If not next year 2023 at the latest. The news only reports on the unvaccinated, but I try to focus on the good news. The vaccine has been available for general use for under a year and half of the world population is vaccinated and the number can't go down. As well, as the year progresses we got new technology such as booster shots. More people are getting the virus which means that less people in the future will get it. Building vaccine and infection based immunity is definitely going to help. I got fully vaccinated a few weeks ago, thank god; and I'm going to be able to get my booster shot in a month or so. With three shots of the vaccine and having had COVID last year, I feel I'll be good to go and of course I'll wear my mask to protect my fellow man along the way.

I have a bright outlook and I really feel it's not going to be that much longer.

My personal opinion is that it's already over. We have vaccines, we have treatment drugs for mitigation. This virus will never just pack up and "go away". It will be like the flu with a new variant every year and eventually herd immunity will probably be similar with scientists guessing at which variant will show up each year for annual covid shots and hoping they are effective. Hundreds of thousands of people will die from it every year, just like they do with the flu, pneumonia, cancer, etc.

I work in medical equipment. I do O2 orders for hospitals all day, and the numbers in PA, NJ, MD, VA, and WV which are the states I mostly work are all way down from even this time last year. No one is going on ventilators, and most of the treatment plans are usually 1-3LPM (liters per minute) for 30 days or less.

However, my opinion doesn't really mean shit, and someone else will have a completely contrarian one. Instead it will be up to the politicians and will be used by ones of every flavor for their agendas and motives whenever and wherever it suits them. Such is the nature of our society.

We're seeing it now with the US imposing new travel bans for the new "Omicron" variant which we already have here anyway because some Californian ignored the ban and went to South Africa. So that just proves no matter how authoritarian the laws, they will never control 8 billion people.

Wait, there's a pandemic on??

I think the Omicron variant is just to distract us from the Ghislane Maxwell trial.

The flus we have now (and get yearly boosters from) are the same flus (well, evolved from) as the Spanish variant. You can see that in the genetics. Covid will be with us forever but viruses generally calm the fuck down as it's a parasite and killing your host is a bad thing if you want to proliferate. Thus evolution favours the non-lethal variants.

So we will never get rid of it, there will be yearly boosters and we will see deaths every year for the rest of our lives.

But things will become 'normal' in possibly 2 years? Where we all go back to capitalism, and 9-5, and worrying about other things.

I agree with everyone saying the actual Covid will be with us forever just as Spanish Flu still is - we're all the descendents of the people who survived. But the question is when will the pandemic be "officialy" over - when will the WHO declare it finished, when will we again be able to fly internationally needing only a ticket and passport - no masks, vaccination certificates, etc. i.e. when (if ever) will things return to "normal", or at least as they were before?

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully vaccinated and will be getting my booster this month, and I'm all in favour of masks in shops etc. But wearing a mask isn't on my list of fun activities and while half an hour in Tesco is fine, the idea of wearing one for the entirity of a 5 hour flight to Athens, or a 10 hour one to Las Vegas, does not really appeal.

Hmmm: We're only at 5.2 million deaths at present: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-toll/

My wife and I have basically given up on the idea of travel. Even if the risk is now relatively low, we will have a hard time relaxing and enjoying ourselves.

This virus is not going to go away. We're going to have to learn to live with it. But, thankfully, with advanced medical technology, we will be able to live with it. Vaccine programs are helping reduce the number of hospitalisations and fatalities from this virus and, now that we understand it better, when new strains come (like the current Omicron variant) we'll be able to get on top of it more quickly.
It may be the case that, like the flu, we learn to live with it through vaccines and exposure. WE're already seeing deaths and hospitalisations go down in relation to the number of cases. Many scientists report that Covid will become endemic by 2023 if vaccine rates continue the way they're going. We may unfortunately have to keep wearing face masks for at least another year or so but we are winning the fight against Covid.

I'm not sure the virus is going to honor our consensus. When it gets time to prepare to leave is the time to make the decision.

That said, I voted for the very longest option. I'm glad to read here that Japan is doing well.

I, however, am in America. I am really not impressed with the way many of my fellow Americans are handling this. No mask, no vax, no distance, big gatherings...it's gonna be awhile.

Nessie

I was elated to find out that she hadn't suicided herself yet. I'm sure it will be swept under the rug and no one of any sufficient power or influence in any of the pictures, documents, or flight logs will ever be prosecuted or turn up dead.

Had a friend make this
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1hKlYsQ6wIA
I don't know I'm helping with a solution in the morning but I'm not sure.
So many different things and pages of how to help solution wise.

I'm really surprised it's not already over. As several people have already pointed out viruses usually mutate and become more infectious but less lethal/damaging. Many people believe the omicron variant is that much anticipated mutation. Once omicron is the dominant variant in a few countries that have carried out vaccination (it looks like this may happen in the Netherlands within a week or so) then can look at their death rates after a month and see if omicron is less lethal. It'll still be months before we know if omicron has a lower rate of long term effects.
So I'm going to make an optimistic prediction that in 6 months time omicron or another variant will be the dominant variant, it will be proven to be both less lethal and less damaging (I.e few or no cases of post viral fatigue ,kidney damage etc) WHO will still consider it a pandemic but only in the same way a cold virus is a pandemic. All travel bans etc will be lifted and we'll see covid parties where people take young children along to get infected.
On the other hand I have a more pessimistic feeling that the next time a flu or corona virus mutates and jumps from animal to human it's going to be just as bad and governments will once again be too slow to react.

In the spring, I thought it would be this year, with vaccinations going so well. I was so happy.

I'm still glad many deaths have been avoided with the vaccines but I didn't understand however that the vaccinations wouldn't do much about transmission, I can't recall the exact wording but something about the way the virus replicates, as opposed to measles, means transmission can't be stopped (unless with everyone masking and a bunch of other restrictions, but I know many have got frustrated with those)

I don't agree with just letting it rip through the population, my poor old nan is not expendable despite her age. BUT I also don't want to see the world shut down indefinitely either so I understand the tricky issues around controlling it. (big sigh)

Anyway I voted 2023. I think our best hope is that the likelihood is, the virus mutate to keep becoming less serious and more transmissible. I have read that viruses rarely become more serious, they want to spread, not to kill their hosts. So a highly transmissible variant with sod all effects is probably our likeliest way out of this, and vaccination of course. If even the most vulnerable, some of whom can't have the vaccine - could catch it with very little ill effect, then that would be ideal, and no one would be hospitalised by it. I hope Omicron turns out to be very mild for that reason. Then it can all just be endemic without harming the vulnerable.

I also hope that by 2023 we and other wealthy nations can donate enough vaccines to help all African countries get their rates up. They are really struggling with dosages per head of population, and it's not over til it's over for the poor and forgotten too.

In the year 2525, if man is still alive.....

Basically I agree with Candy, but I should add that studies have shown that vaccination does reduce transmission, though not to the same effect that it reduces infection. The UK Government regularly produces a weekly Vaccination Surveillance Report (you can search for it on Google) which refers to studies showing a 35-60% reduction in transmission in families where one member is vaccinated.

This is important because it undermines the anti-vaxxers argument that vaccination is a personal choice that doesnt affect anyone else. In reality vaccination not only reduces your chances of infection and serious illness, it also helps the wider community by reducing the burden on health services and reducing the chances of others being infected. It means quite simply everyone has a responsibility to the wider community to get vaccinated if they can.

Additionally the latest variant should highlight the need to distribute vaccines more widely. Mutations are most likely to occur when the virus can circulate freely in unvaccinated populations. Thus we had the Alpha variant in Kent emerging at a time when infections were high and vaccinations hadnt got going, then the Delta variant in India where vaccination rates at the time were quite low and now Omicron in South Aftrica where vaccination is also low. If we are to avoid more variants emerging stepping up vaccinations around the world must be a priority and Western countries need to be doing much more than they are at present to ensure this happens.

You beat me to that one!!

Ya'll know that 2022 is the year of Soylent Green right?

It ends when you stop watching the news.

Yo bust this. I think that several countries have made it very clear to their adversaries whether they are vulnerable to a real biological weapon attack. Should America get hit with one, half of us have made it very clear that we won't even try to defend ourselves against it, while endangering and belittling those who are trying to.

Even if that doesn't happen, Covid-19 has a 19 for a reason. If something has a year in its name, you know it won't be the last one. So even if this one is eventually over, the next one will always be around the corner, especially with how increasingly global everything is. And there's no guarantee that they will all be... JuSt liKe tHe fLuuuUuu

M

let me return a question first, as it'll kinda frame my answer:

What do you consider as the goalposts to have considered it as having ended?

now to the answer:
Will an end mean going fully back to pre-covid? nah, not possible.
Will things return to as close to pre-covid normal as possible? possible but variable.

Depending on how Omicron pans out, i dont see the pandemic (as pandemic is defined by the WHO and health agencies around the world) lasting any longer that sometime in 2023 at the latest (sometime next year at the earliest). I think it'll likely morph into a similar situation as the flu: it becomes *relatively* benign compared to the heights of the pandemic but it will still circulate through the global populace and we'll likely be having yearly covid shots like we have yearly flu shots to counter the expected strains for the year but that's something i think all sensible people can live with.

I think travel will resume to something approximating pre-covid travel but with some restrictions for the willingly unvaccinated remaining. Cruising will return but may morph (to any number of varying degrees) to account for the risks.

the silver lining is that this has been a good wake-up call to the risks and chaos that biological weapons could have on unprepared populaces as well as how scenarios might unfold.

Oh that's a whole different topic. Biologics like coronaviruses aren't exactly a new things. Anthrax for instance was discovered in the 1700s and first used as a weapon by the Japanese during their occupation of China in the 30s.

If anyone doesn't think that right now as I'm typing, EVERY world power, USA, China, Russia, etc. ISN'T developing some sort of biologic weapon, they are incredibly naive.

When eugenics is truly unlocked, the world will become a VERY scary place. Imagine viruses that infect only certain targets that have certain genetic markers for instance.

Eugenic/biological war won't be a war of countries...no, it will be a war of genes. If you think racism is an issue now...wait until someone makes a virus that targets only one group of people.


If the Spanish Flu pandemic were like Genghis Khan, than this is sort of like Napoleon or Hitler.

But ultimately, this is just another variant of SARS, but a more potent and long lived version. This is also why Asian countries are bouncing back to normal. This isn't their first rodeo with it, and it won't be their last.

Meanwhile Americans have been a very entitled and decadent culture for the past 80 years or so. "Winning" WWII as created subsequent generations of "AMERICA #1". We have never been occupied by a foreign power (unless you count US now occupying the natives).

We are complacent dullards who think we are untouchable. But a couple hundred years ago, so was our parent nation, the great British Empire. But if you look at mighty Britannia today, she's just a retired elderly woman. Such happens with every empire, so too will happen with us, and frankly; I can't wait. We could use some fucking humility.

I did read - and treat this with as much skepticism as you see fit - that a 'supervaccine' and drugs that can treat all or most expected mutations of SARS are close to being developed. I have always been dismissive of the idea that we could simply eliminate or supress C-19 entirely as opposed to have it end up endemic but fairly easy to treat.

There will almost inveitably be future pandemics. However we now know what works, what doesn't, and how astonishingly quickly technology can respond.

tbh i dont think about it anymore and rarely watch or read news about it. im bored of it and know it will be with us for many years like every virus. im happy and just live my life like normal but i dont mix with loads of people anyway.

When everybody obeys the law and gets vaccinated. Duh.

So the clear winner is most people think the pandemic will still be with us well into the future.

From my own POV I suspect that is correct for Covid-19 the virus, but not necessarily the official pandemic. Certainly does suggest it won't be over by next Summer as I feel a lot of businesses and politicians are banking on though.


Currently as far as I know there's no law anywhere that says people have to be vaccinated though a couple of countries are proposing it, but not for a few months yet. And being vaccinated doesn't stop the virus, just means you're less likely to end up in an ER or die of it.

I agree that it will be with us well into the future. Humanity isn't able to vaccinate itself, both due to the sheer number of humans and vaccine hesitancy. Poorer countries unable to afford vaccines will continue to be the breeding grounds for new variants.

In addition to the health challenges, there will continue to be social challenges. Currently here in Canada, the hospitals are not using vaccination status and a primary triage tool. Serious surgeries and treatments, including brain surgery and cancer treatments are being postponed. One woman lost her nose because her cancer surgery was postponed. If I get a stroke, will I be left in the hall to die while some younger person is treated despite the fact he refused to be vaccinated?

At present the anti-vaxxers have been more vocal but that could change in a heartbeat if the majority loses its patience. Surely the right to refuse a vaccine does not extend to depriving me of needed health care?

I have a different perspective of this based on some information I have. Like that a prominent medical facility where I live had cases that were never reported to the media because they were afraid of causing mass panic in the beginning. Like 3 months before the first "official" case. One of the people in my circle works on the machines that do the COVID testing. The machines he works on were repurposed from pregnancy tests to COVID tests. Because of the mass number of testing the maintenance on the machines is needing to be performed more often. He has to fight to be home on the weekends due to the area he covers. His frequent flyer miles are adding up so fast he has diamond status with an airline. I saw things with his schedule slow down this summer. But it has picked back up the past couple of months. I hate thinking this way but I think it is a good thing his work is picking up because it means more people are being tested. However, it has me concerned about what it is doing to the shelf life of the machines.

Due to how politicized I have seen this here in the states, I really think we will stop hearing about it as much once it is no longer politically beneficial for one side or the other to spread their narrative about it. Then we will finally only hear the science around it.

I think that in my state we will be down to less than 500 cases a day in the next 6 months. A year from now I could see us around 100 cases a day or lower. Our current average is about 1200 cases a day. I think that everyone that is going to get vaccinated because it is a good idea have already done it. Now it is going to take someone close to them or someone they care about dying for them to get vaccinated. Unfortunately that is just how people are.

By around 2025 or so it will be something that we hear about on the news of a few cases. Like with West Nile virus and other things.

I believe we are all going to die.

It will be around going forward for the foreseeable future, just as many other viruses are. We're in a different place to 1920 when the Spanish flu came along because science is so much more advanced, so more treatments will come along as well as probably more effective vaccines. Even the often-pessimistic scientists in the UK are saying "each six months will be better than the last." Omicron is unfortunate, but it's spreading so fast that it will be much shorter wave than we have had before.

But the only real definite we know is that Covid is unpredictable! But I do think there will come a time in the not-too-distant future where society will say "to hell with it" and just get on with life while mitigating risks - just as many of us with immune system problems do every year with the flu and norovirus anyway. I'd certainly get to that stage now if it wasn't for the fact I have an 87 year old mum and want to keep her as safe as possible as she can't have the jab for medical reasons. That said, I'm not sure many people are actually less nervous around elderly people who HAVE had the jab - so the nerves would be there anyway!

But I don't think we're going to wake up one morning and find it's gone. But I do think there are things that could be done to help people get through it - such as halting the daily news stories about it that aren't news stories anyway. Scientist X says such-and-such MAY happen, and that the next wave COULD be the largest, that we MIGHT reach a certain number of cases a day. And so on. I don't think people don't want to hear mays, coulds, and mights anymore. If it's an unknown, wait until it's a known before reporting it. Likewise, do we need to know daily figures? Would we be better off with weekly figures? Must every utterance be a major news story that runs for a week? In the UK, the Boris said in March or April that Covid passports "couldn't be ruled out." And the news stories ran for weeks saying that they are likely to be brought in. And then they weren't. I think the media (press and TV and internet) are no longer being responsible. They're not reporting facts, they're making clickbait out of every little thing that might or might not happen.

I really do think we would all have mentally coped with this better if we had the same technology we had thirty years ago: no rolling TV news, just the bulletins at 6 and 10. No headlines forever popping up on your phone. No internet, and so no news stories about it on every page you turn to. That way, even in lockdown, we could at least forget about it for a few hours a day. The only way to do that in 2021 is by literally isolating yourself from every media source possible.