Today, with the increasing number of vaccinations and more people getting infected in the community, despite the emergence of variants, we are hoping to soon make the move from pandemic to endemic. The infection then regionalises to a particular country or subcontinent, wherein small troughs and peaks keep occurring with periodic regularity, but most of the time the community is largely unaffected owing to immunity and man and virus cohabit.
What will nudge the move from pandemic to endemic where each region will have its own constellation of mild virus and variants? Unequivocally we know that the vaccine protects — either you do not get infected or if you do, it is mild and doesn’t significantly necessitate intensive treatment. So vaccination is a must at all and any cost. The amount of antibody that it will generate will protect you for about a year. Please note that immunity after the shot is generated by B cells and T cells, so by just measuring your antibodies and coming to premature conclusions will only add to your anxiety. The question of booster will be addressed in due time in our country as we approach a year and a larger section of the population becomes seropositive (presence of antibodies owing to different causes).
Masking with distancing is the next most important step towards the endemic phase. Unfortunately like helmets and seatbelts are worn in this country to prevent payment of the fine if apprehended, masks are mostly worn these days fearing the economic offence. The threat to health is secondary to this large portion of the population which roams with gay abandon, whereby they scout fashionable and matching masks which decorate but don’t protect and that too on the chin or dangling on the neck. We need to restrict the virus from infecting and spreading, thus weakening it and mellowing its ‘bite’. It’s a pity that with the opening up, people have also erased the recent memory of how the whole planet was held ransom for more than a year with devastating consequences, by the Covid virus.
The great Spanish flu, which was also a pandemic, after a three-year struggle was beaten down to an endemic and that it is even today, for we still are encouraged to take the flu vaccine. If in an era when medicine and science was not advanced as it is today, nature adopted the same course, with our innovations, we must march swiftly towards this steady state by strangulating the virus.
Scientists are working round the clock to find the magic bullet in the form of a pill and the pot of gold doesn’t seem far for Merck’s Molnupiravir sounds promising. Improvisations in vaccines and therapy modes are continuously being researched, but the path to endemic status is the responsibility of every citizen. Whether in the postinfected state or immunised, the enemy is the same and though victory of man is certain, how much bloodshed will we have to endure, rests in the attitude of the people.
I speak only for India because there are certain countries where vaccines have not even made an appearance. The pace here has picked up and we have more or less negotiated a large number of regional festivals, so unless we do something stupid or we are unlucky with a mutation, the third wave seems distant.
Let’s join hands and make Covid endemic for “jeena yehan marna yehan, iske siva jaana kahan”,
(Dr Hemant Thacker is a consultant physician & cardiometabolic specialist practising in south Mumbai and affiliated to the Times Group.Email: [email protected] )
