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July 6, 2022

Yale expert: Pandemic likely to last 2 more years

PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED Yale School of Medicine professor Onyema Ogbuagu gets a COVID-19 vaccination at Yale New Haven Hospital.
By Liese Klein

COVID-19 is likely to remain at pandemic levels for at least two more years, a Yale expert reported this week. 

Caroline Zeiss, a professor of comparative medicine at Yale School of Medicine, studied  coronavirus reinfection rates among rats as part of a new study published on Monday. Zeiss used the data to forecast that COVID-19 could transition into a low-level endemic phase within two years. 

COVID-19’s tendency to infect people but fail to provide long-lasting immunity means it will likely persist in the community longer than other pandemic viruses, Zeiss said. The similarity between animal and human coronaviruses allows for meaningful comparisons, she added. 

“There are many lessons to be learned from animal coronaviruses,” Zeiss said in a Yale statement. 

Using a coronavirus similar to one that causes the common cold in humans, researchers studied how the pathogen was transmitted through rat populations. Their observations led to the conclusion that over time a population accumulates broad immunity leading to endemic stability, even as the pathogen persists.

Taking into account widespread vaccination, mathematical models based on the rat data postulated that the median time it could take for SARS-CoV-2 to become endemic in the United States is 1,437 days – or just under four years – from the pandemic’s onset in March 2020.

Even so, the model predicted that 15.4% of the population in this scenario would still be susceptible to COVID-19 infection at any given time even after the virus reaches endemic phase.

“The virus is constantly going to be circulating,” Zeiss said. “We can’t assume that once we reach the endemic state that everybody is safe.”

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