How long will this virus be with us? Earlier this week, the scientific journal Nature published an international survey of 119 Covid-19 experts — immunologists, virologists and epidemiologists — about the likely future of the virus and the human race. Almost nine in ten of them thought it likely that Covid would become endemic in the human population, continuing to circulate at least in some regions for many years to come. Six in ten thought it “very likely”. Only 6% thought that an unlikely scenario.
This makes the goal of complete virus elimination — Zero Covid — look unrealistic, at least in the short term. But unfortunately for the Prime Minister, who is expected to announce Britain’s “roadmap” out of lockdown on Monday, it by no means answers the question of which route he should take.
When it took scientists less than a year from Covid’s outbreak to create a working vaccine, and not just one but several, relief was twofold. In one sense, the prospect of an end to both the disease’s merciless death toll and the atomised grimness of human life brought general euphoria to the darkness of November. But for politicians and others tasked with steering society between the Scylla of social destruction and the Charybdis of Covid itself, there was a different relief.
Without a workable vaccine, they faced the impossible task of extricating society from a cycle of lockdowns, knowing that doing so would probably mean a rise in deaths that could make the earlier stringent measures seem futile. With vaccines, though, normal life could return without sacrificing tens or hundreds of thousands more lives.
But, as Number Ten is now discovering, the introduction of vaccines creates an entirely new set of dilemmas for governments across the developed world. For if it is possible, even in theory, to bring the infection rate so low that “test, trace, isolate” is a practical way to control the disease on its own, the current lockdown is probably the last chance to do that. Yet doing so would mean continuing the current stringent measures for months, long after the most vulnerable have been vaccinated; there are even rumours that the Government wants to maintain the current lockdown until cases (not hospitalisations) fall below one thousand a day — less than a tenth of the current figure.
But the first, and subsequent, lockdowns were justified as measures to keep deaths and serious cases at a level that wouldn’t overwhelm health services. If vaccinating the most vulnerable parts of the population breaks the link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths — bringing the impact of Covid down to the level of a seasonal illness like flu — does it matter if infections remain as common as its cousin, the common cold, which infects the average adult two or three times per year?
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe