The official statistics, which already tend to underestimate the number of cases, may become even less sensitive to the true dimensions of viral transmission. By and large, the six-month outlook in many countries is brighter than at any time in the past two years. That approach has kept the number of deaths caused by COVID-19 low. What happens next? This means downsizing is pushed backwards too. 18. So what should you do next? Caution is still warranted. The threshold for achieving herd immunity for COVID-19 is the percentage of a population that needs to develop immunity to disease to prevent sustained future transmission. is blind to contagious new virus variant, scientists warn,, Coronavirus: Israel leads vaccine race with 12% given jab,, Melissa Davey, WHO warns Covid-19 pandemic is not necessarily the big one,, Apoorva Mandavilli, The future of the coronavirus? Shabhir A. Mahdi et al., Efficacy of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 Covid-19 vaccine against the B.1.351 variant,, Novavax COVID-19 vaccine demonstrates 89.3% efficacy in UK Phase 3 trial, Novavax, January 28, 2021, ir.novavax.com; Carl Zimmer, Noah Weiland, and Sharon LaFraniere, New analyses show Johnson & Johnsons one-dose vaccine works well,. The authors wish to thank Xavier Azcue, Brian Hencke, David Meredith, Michalis Michaelides, Anthony Ramirez, Virginia Simmons, Konstantinos Tsakalis, and Lieven Van der Veken for their contributions to this article. While a more infectious variant likely means more people are acquiring natural immunity through infection (despite ongoing efforts to minimize new cases), the net impact of more-infectious strains is likely to be that a higher portion of the population needs to be vaccinated, which may take more time. Public-health authorities around the world are considering short- and medium-term strategies for the timing and rollout of booster shots. As cases decline, our analysis suggests that the United States, Canada, and the European Union could restart the transition toward normalcy as early as the fourth quarter of 2021, provided that the vaccines used in these countries continue to be effective at preventing severe cases of COVID-19. Third, the fraction of US and UK residents who already have natural immunity from prior infection is in the same range (with significant variability among regions within countries).149SeroTracker, Public Health Agency of Canada, accessed 1/12/21, serotracker.com. COVID Companies have indicated that modified or new vaccines could be available in a few months, though the scale and global availability are unclear.58Pfizer and BioNTech provide update, December 8, 2021; Khristopher J. Brooks, CEOs and scientists on whether existing vaccines will work against Omicron, CBS News, December 8, 2021. The principal challenge we have in Australia at the moment, as is seen in the United States and the United Kingdom, in France, in Germany, in Italy, right across What will Australia's fourth year of the COVID-19 pandemic look COVID-19 deaths on the rise: Epidemiologists grim prediction for Australia, Not so fast: Tony Abbott calls for the Voice referendum to be cancelled, The night I cooked schnitty for Barry Humphries, actual number of virus cases at the peak of the Omicron wave was likely double, Omicron wave cases double reported: Study. Based on a range of likely vaccine scenarios and the fact that those with prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2 will still be eligible for vaccination, every ten percentage-point increase in seroprevalence could roughly translate into a one-month acceleration of the timeline to the epidemiological endpoint. Estimated case-detection rates range from 3:1 to 10:1.2Charlie Giattino, How epidemiological models of COVID-19 help us estimate the true number of infections, Our World in Data, August 24, 2020, ourworldindata.org; Hazhir Rahmandad, John Sterman, and Tse Yang Lim, Estimating COVID-19 under-reporting across 86 nations: Implications for projections and control, medRxiv, August 3, 2020, medrxiv.org. But Australia is approaching the wave from a different starting point to other countriesand that's affecting how our infrastructure is handling the surge and our attitudes towards it. COVID-19 Projections - Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Data are not yet available on the drugs efficacy in vaccinated individuals. For example, while 215 million Americans are fully vaccinated, only 93 million have also received a booster dose.33COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, February 23, 2022, covid.cdc.gov. We entertain, eat, exercise, study, work at home more often. Patrick Durkin BOSS Deputy editor. Coronavirus (COVID-19) at a glance 2 June 2022 | Australian SARS-CoV-2 Infection-induced and Vaccine-induced Immunity. The pandemics two endpoints, a transition toward normalcy and herd immunity, may look different in different places. An alarming spike in COVID-19 and flu cases in Australia could put the U.S. on track for what health experts call a twindemic a dangerous viral one-two punch in Other advanced economies are probably on similar timetables. The vaccines now in wide distribution still limit the incidence of severe disease. BA.5 appears to [be] infecting the lungs, whereas the BA.2 mainly infects the upper airways. Stephan Ehrmann et al., Awake prone positioning for COVID-19 acute hypoxaemic respiratory failure: A randomised, controlled, multinational, open-label meta-trial,. The threshold to achieve it is governed by a number of factors, including the transmissibility of the disease.138Eames, Fine, and Heymann, Herd immunity: A rough guide, pp. COVID The question of disease severity is more complicated. Seven Northwestern experts give their top predictions for 2022, from supply chain disruptions to the endemic phase of COVID-19 to green energy transitions.