“Things seem to be looking up,” CNN says (here). “Vaccines still do a good job of keeping people alive and out of the hospital. There’s increasing access to tests and treatments.” Infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are down (but still significant), and the health care system isn’t as badly stressed as it was.
But will it last? That depends on future variants, so is unpredictable.
CNN says, “based on what they’re seeing now, here’s what the experts think could happen in the next year of the pandemic.”
Going into spring, the CDC expects numbers to keep falling, but Covid-19 “isn’t going away,” people can’t throw away their masks, and life won’t return to what it was. Experts worry that next fall and winter infections may climb again, as people go back indoors, if they’re complacent. A prominent public health doctor says, “Eradication is not possible.”
On the vaccine front, you may need a fourth shot this year, there might be a vaccine specifically for Omicron, and by April there should be a vaccine for kids under 5, which is important because during this winter’s Omicron surge the biggest jump in hospitalization rates was in that age group.
With numerous anti-viral drugs in development, treatment options likely will expand, but Covid-19 is still a disease to avoid. Up to 30% of infected people experience so-called “long Covid” symptoms (which include “fatigue, breathing trouble, joint and chest pain, and heart problems”), and scientists are trying to get a better grasp on “symptoms and treatments.”