The coronavirus pandemic is not over – 05/12/2023 – Sou Ciência

Recently, the WHO declared the end of the Public Health emergency and many people already understood that it would be the end of the covid-19 pandemic. Just over three years after the announcement by the same organization, declaring the coronavirus pandemic, humanity continues to have to deal with a virus that emerged in 2019 and brought insecurity and many losses.

Far from wanting in this text to debate whether we have learned something – because it seems to us that we have learned many things, but we are quickly forgetting others -, but it is important to reflect on what the end of the public health emergency means and how to deal with the pandemic from now on.

In the world, concern must continue, as we have two important issues that cannot be minimized. The first is that the virus continues to circulate and although we have a part of the population with the most developed immunity to fight the coronavirus (whether through vaccination, previous infection or a combination of the two), it has not disappeared and everything indicates that it will not. will disappear soon.

Sars-Cov-2 surprised us all, the scientific and medical community, by demonstrating a great capacity for mutation and today there are hundreds of mutants already characterized. Many of them will not even be noticed, but there are many others that need to continue to be monitored, as they generate interest and others that actually generate concern. For this reason, they are called variants of interest (since they continue to be observed) and variants of concern (which are monitored and can generate new waves).

The other factor that worries us all is the existence of a huge lack of equity between countries and many nations still have a low percentage of their population vaccinated, which increases the chance of the virus circulating. We are in a globalized world and people are in constant translocation. We must not forget that this is how the virus spread throughout the world in 2020. Although in Brazil we have a high percentage of people vaccinated with the first doses and this gave collective immunity that made it possible to fight the serious illness, we still have many people who do not they took the booster doses and we dealt with the return of vaccine hesitancy. This, combined with the fact that people feel safer and no longer use masks, in addition to low testing, show an insecurity in the Public Health system. Control and prevention systems for new variants of concern or new waves may fail.

Certainly, we are in the best moment since the pandemic began three years ago. The health system is no longer in the same conditions of bed overload and primary care, no longer having a coordinated mobilization of resources to meet the emergency in high demand. Therefore, WHO made this decision based on data and expert guidance. However, we must not forget that Covid-19 continues to claim lives, with around 250 to 300 deaths a day. We cannot think that this is normal, nor can we forget the more than 700,000 lives that were taken by the disease, not counting those who were not counted because they were not diagnosed in time.

In addition, we continue to deal with the anti-vaccination movements, which insist that vaccines are experimental and cause harm to health. SoU_Ciência has shown that these claims are unfounded and lack scientific evidence. We follow a professional system for spreading lies and spreading fear, which even has doctors and people with supposed knowledge, but who are earning and monetizing the issue. The absurdities are such that we now have professionals who offer their expensive services to “devaccinate” people in a clear movement of quackery at high prices.

The end of the Public Health emergency was a correct measure, considering the moment we live in. But believing that the WHO announcement is the end of the pandemic can do a lot of harm to health. Scientifically, we are still in a pandemic, as the disease is distributed on all continents and impacts human health. It is necessary to pay attention to what the WHO itself stressed, as well as the Minister of Health Nísia Trindade in her recent pronouncement: care, prevention measures, vaccination and studies must continue, as scientists continue the search to understand the challenges of Sars-Cov-2 and its consequences.

So let’s celebrate, but let’s not stop watching. Vaccination is the most important step in this preventive vigil. Let’s hope, soon Science will bring more and better vaccines and this will help us to lower even more the cases of serious diseases, as well as fight the variants that affect human health the most. This is one of the greatest learnings to learn from the three years of the pandemic that marked our generations and which we cannot forget.

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