Is COVID endemic? Here’s what health experts are saying.
How soon could we see COVID-19 go from pandemic to endemic? Here’s what we know now.
Just the FAQs, USA TODAY
Ask Dr. Mark Pandori, director of the Nevada State Public Health Lab, how he feels about COVID-19 now five months into 2022, and the answer might surprise you.
The masks are gone. Hospitals aren’t full. The emergency room at Renown Regional Medical Center is nearly back to normal, with flu and drug overdoses dominating admissions.
And last week Gov. Steve Sisolak officially ended the State of Emergency more than two years after declaring one because of COVID-19.
Even the lab, where Pandori has spent nearly every day since March 2020, is now running more infant screenings than COVID-19 tests.
But we could find ourselves back in trouble again, according to Pandori.
He said a surge is likely again later this year.
“If you look at the pattern of the last two years for SARS-CoV-2, you see something repeatable,” he said.
“It’s a roller coaster that goes up in late July and August and it comes down, and then it goes up in late fall into winter and then it comes down.”
But Pandori said the spikes could be dulled because of immunity.
“Maybe the roller coaster will be more like bumper cars instead,” he said.
Dr. Eric Nielsen, an emergency room doctor at Renown, said that after the quick and less deadly Omicron surge in January, things are normal.
“The general sentiment of is one of resignation,” Nielsen said. “My personal feeling is that vaccines are still holding up at preventing deaths reasonably well, but obviously hospitalization and transmissions have not been stopped in their tracks as we had hoped.”
He said if a person is high-risk, they should be wearing an N95 mask in public or staying home.
Washoe County Health District Officer Kevin Dick agreed.
Dick said the increase in cases in Nevada means people need to take actions to control risks.
“It is important to recognize that your risk is cumulative. If you are going to crowded restaurants every day or attending a number of gatherings, you are going to be at increased risk,” he said.
Fear of COVID-19 virus changing
The virus continues to circulate well and test positivity and the demand for testing is up in recent weeks.
“While it is spreading, it is continuing to change, Pandori said. He said there is a lot of genetic variability in the virus.
“Every time you allow yourself to be a host to the virus, you are allowing the virus to change,” he said.
“The risk is that it can change into something we can’t control well,” Pandori said.
“We don’t want to keep rolling the dice genetically with this because the opportunity to make it more severe is still out there,”
Most who died from coronavirus not fully vaccinated
The Reno Gazette Journal analyzed Washoe County Health District data from Jan. 1 through April 29.
Of the 168 people who died from COVID in the first four months of 2022, 106 or 63% were not fully vaccinated.
“Although we are all done with COVID-19, COVID-19 is not done with us,” said Dick. Dick continued to stress that people get vaccinated and boosted.
He cited statistics that show dying from COVID-19 is five times higher for people who are not vaccinated. He said people who are not boosted have a three times greater risk of dying.
Of the 168 who died from COVID-19 from Jan. 1 to April 29, 154 or 92% did not get a booster shot. Only 14 or 8% of the people who died from COVID this year were boosted.
The booster shot numbers are close to the effectiveness of the initial vaccine doses in preventing deaths when the shots were still new, and there weren’t as many variants to deal with.
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Pre-existing conditions mean greater risk of death
Of the 168 people who died from COVID, 138 or 82% had a pre-existing health condition. It is similar to the 88% from the first 1,000 deaths.
Of the 138 people who died from COVID with an underlying health condition, 80 or 58% were not fully vaccinated and 125 or 91% did not get a booster shot.
Older populations are more susceptible to dying from COVID.
The average age of people who died from COVID-19 this year is 72. People under age 50 accounted for only 13 deaths (about 7% of all deaths) from COVID-19 this year.
Of the 13 people age 49 and younger who died:
- All 13 had an underlying health condition.
- 5 of them were fully vaccinated.
- 2 had a booster shot.
Of the 155 people age 50 and older who died:
- People age 60 and older accounted for half of all deaths from COVID-19 this year.
- People age 70 and older accounted for 40% of all deaths from COVID-19 this year.
- Men continue to account for the majority of COVID deaths. Of the 168 people who died from COVID, 104 or 62% were men.
Siobhan McAndrew tells stories about the people of Northern Nevada and covers education in Washoe County. Read her journalism right here. Consider supporting her work by subscribing to the Reno Gazette Journal.
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