When is the pandemic over?

It's almost June of 2021, a year and a half after covid first turned the world upside down, and yet globally we're far from returning to normal. While some countries like the US seem to be on track, other countries like India and Brazil are still battling the worst spread of the virus to date, and countries like Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia are re-engaging in lockdowns as covid cases spike. 

This all begs the question - when is the pandemic truly over?

Covid cases will never return to zero; we can never completely go back to pre-covid times. However, we've reshaped our lives to combat covid's impact with quarantine rules, work from home, travel restrictions, face masks, lockdown, alcohol wipes, travel bubbles, and more - but a lot of these inconveniences we'd expect to go away. So... when's that happening?

The answer for those in the US and Europe is now. For them, the pandemic is already over; borders are about to open and citizens are returning to their precovid lives. This is because covid's level of threat has been reduced from a pandemic to that of the flu - serious but manageable. 

But for the rest of the world, the pandemic lives on, and will continue to affect life for quite some time. 

In South East Asia, masks, travel restrictions, quarantine rules, and lockdowns will probably still occur even until 2022. For other locations like India and Brazil, covid will continue to ravage the population and economy with no end in sight. And for most of the global, the fight to return to normal is still ongoing. 

It may seem counterintuitive that places that have all but contained covid during the worst of times will be under pandemic restrictions longer than those who didn't. But ironically, because containment works well, it's caused most populations to be slow in vaccine adoption, which is what is prolonging it's stay. 

Covid is under control if the rate of cases is at a steady state, and that steady state doesn't overwhelm hospital capacity. However, for a non-vaccinated population, the only steady state is zero cases - any amount above zero and covid will spread. 

This simplifies the issue - as long as populations are not sufficiently vaccinated, authorities can't resume pre-pandemic conditions. So when will these countries reach this state? 

The answer is complicated and depressing.

Shortage of vaccine supplies plague many countries. Taiwan and Malaysia are both scrambling to secure enough vaccines and won't have enough supply for full population coverage until 2022. Other countries like Japan have postponed securing vaccines in the hopes of producing a domestic one, which hasn't materialized. 

To meet long term demand, countries like Singapore are looking to manufacture the vaccine by themselves, which is still slow to action. However, even countries with enough availability face skepticism from their populations about getting the shot. 

Hong Kong has an abundance of vaccines, but in a recent poll, 63% of the population don't intend to get it. And Australia and New Zealand also suffer an anti-vaccine sentiment that postpones resumption of normal life - 33% and 50% respectively also don't want the shot. 

This makes any attempt at herd immunity - and reopening borders for travel - indefinitely postponed. 

What can countries do? For some countries, public education is the best approach. CDC departments should make ads making it clear and simple how long it will take to resume normalcy:

Hong Kong has a daily vaccination rate of 11,000 first dose individuals; with a population of 7.5 million, it will take until December of 2022 before borders can safely open. With a rate of 75,000 a day, we could reopen in August of 2021. Together we fight the virus! 

For many other nations like Taiwan, Japan, and Malaysia, the scramble to secure enough vaccines is still ongoing. Yet, these nations face the same resistance in sentiment, and much effort needs to be committed, now, to educate and change the public view.

Global support will be desperately needed to contain the pandemic in countries where covid is running rampant. Hotbeds of covid are breeding grounds for variants, and these countries will perpetually struggle with containment for the foreseeable future. A global shortage of vaccines and the significant efforts it would take to distribute the vaccine make conquering the pandemic globally seem out of reach before 2023.

In short, the global pandemic is far from over, and there's still a lot to be done.