The end is near?

After two years, we are hoping and praying that the end is near. It seems to be. We are seeing the number of cases going down as fast as it had spiked in early January. Some countries, including ours, are lifting restrictions.

We are now on alert level 2 and there is a proposal from Joey Concepcion to fully dump the alert level system by March or April. Is the end really upon us?

The science isn’t clear. There are scientists who say this may be the beginning of the end. Still, others say it is too early to declare an end, given the ability of the virus to mutate.

According to Time magazine, up to half of people around the globe have been infected by Omicron, and now presumably immune to the variant. With fewer unprotected hosts to infect, viruses generally begin to peter out.

If this assumption is correct, COVID-19 may be shifting from being a pandemic disease to an endemic one. There will still be pockets of outbreaks among immunocompromised and the unvaccinated. But most people should be protected from the worst effects of the virus.

The director general of the World Health Organization has, however, warned in a Tweet we should not assume the COVID pandemic is reaching its ‘end game’.

“Since Omicron was first identified 10 weeks ago, almost 90 million COVID cases have been reported to the WHO. We are starting to see a very worrying increase in deaths in most regions of the world. It’s premature for any country either to surrender or to declare victory.”

But in England, the National Health Service lifted a number of restrictions, suggesting a return to normal pre-pandemic conditions.

As of Jan. 19, people no longer have to work from home.

As of Jan. 20, staff and pupils in secondary schools and colleges are not required to wear a face covering in classrooms.

As of Jan. 27, people are no longer required to wear a face covering, but may consider wearing one in crowded, enclosed spaces where they may come into contact with people they do not normally meet. They no longer have to show their NHS COVID Pass at venues and events.

By Feb. 11, those who are fully vaccinated will no longer need to take a COVID-19 test either before or after arrival in the UK.

Here, our government lifted some restrictions that surprised many. Dr. Edsel Maurice Salvana, an infectious disease specialist at UP-PGH advising IATF, explained in a Facebook post what factors were considered in removing quarantine from fully vaccinated travelers.

“1. Vaccinated people shed less virus.

“2. There is community transmission of Omicron right now, and so people coming from countries with similar or lower transmission than ours are just as likely or even less likely to have the virus compared to someone walking on the street. To further lower this risk, we retained the 48 hour pre-flight testing protocol.

“3. Many people in the vulnerable population have been vaccinated.

“4. Facility and even home quarantine are expensive and have taken an extreme financial and emotional toll on many.

“5. We need to learn to live with the virus and with more and more people vaccinated, there is much less risk of death or severe disease.

“It has been two years and lockdowns have cost us a lot. Vaccines have changed the equation, and we also have antiviral medications for the vulnerable population and for those who develop severe disease...

“I understand people have reservations, but these changes are thoroughly discussed by experts on the advisory panels and are based on the latest data. As we transition to endemicity, we will continue to cautiously reclaim our lives. Please bear with us as we move forward and take these baby steps towards normalcy.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci was cautious when he spoke before the Davos Agenda, a virtual event this week held by the World Economic Forum. He said it is still too early to predict whether Omicron is moving to a more manageable endemic phase.

“...that would only be the case if we don’t get another variant that eludes the immune response to the prior variant. We were fortunate that Omicron did not share some of the same characteristics as Delta.”

Governments can’t wait to bring us back to normal times. But given the ability of the virus to mutate, Fauci is right to say it is too early to declare victory over the virus.

John Barry, a distinguished scholar at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History,” shared the lessons of history in an op/ed he wrote for the New York Times.

“Most histories of the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed at least 50 million people worldwide say it ended in the summer of 1919 when a third wave of the respiratory contagion finally subsided. Yet the virus continued to kill. A variant that emerged in 1920 was lethal enough that it should have counted as a fourth wave…

“This occurred despite the fact that the US population had plenty of natural immunity from the influenza virus after two years of several waves of infection and after viral lethality in the third wave had already decreased…

“People were weary of influenza, and so were public officials. Newspapers were filled with frightening news about the virus, but no one cared. People at the time ignored this fourth wave; so did historians.

“The virus mutated into ordinary seasonal influenza in 1921, but the world had moved on well before. We should not repeat that mistake. That is ceding control to the virus.”

We know the virus is still out there. But so long as we are vaccinated, continue to wear N95 masks, mindful of proper ventilation, continuing to social distance and avoiding crowds, we should be okay.

We cannot stop wearing masks and we cannot stop avoiding crowds just because we are tired of it all. It will be tragic to fall victim to the virus now that the end is so near.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco