STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The coronavirus (COVID-19), which has killed more than five million people globally since early 2020 and caused unprecedented disruptions to everyday life, is unlikely to be completely eradicated, said White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci Monday, dampening hopes the most recent wave of the virus is the beginning of the end of the pandemic.
“If you look at the history of infectious diseases, we’ve only eradicated one infectious disease in man — that’s smallpox,” said Fauci during a videoconference at The Davos Agenda virtual event. ”That’s not going to happen with this virus.”
Fauci’s comments come at a fraught time, as the virulent omicron variant is pressuring health systems in the United States amid an unprecedented wave of new infections, despite the strain’s lower fatality rate.
While some hope the sheer rate of omicron’s transmission could prompt enough widespread immunity to eliminate the chance of another wave of the pandemic, Fauci said it is too soon to be sure.
“I would hope that that’s the case. But that would only be the case if we don’t get another variant that eludes the immune response of the prior variant,” he said. “It is an open question whether it will be the live virus vaccination that everyone is hoping for.”
Instead, Fauci suggested it is more likely the coronavirus will be integrated into the broad range of infectious viruses that have been controlled, including upper respiratory infections and rhinovirus. Experts have been noting for months that endemicity — the continued presence of a disease or other infectious agent — is likely to occur with the coronavirus.
“Control means you have it present but it is present at a level that does not disrupt society,” Fauci said. “That’s my definition of what endemicity would mean.”
That level of COVID-19 would enable society to return to some semblance of normality.
“It’s not going to be that you’ll eliminate this disease completely,” he added. “But hopefully, it will be at such a low level that it doesn’t disrupt our normal social, economic and other interactions with each other. To me, that’s what the new normal is.”
However, scientists said it is still too soon to say the COVID-19 pandemic has entered an endemic stage, since the possibility for new variants to emerge remains high.
“It is indeed too early really to call it endemic,” said Annelies Wilder-Smith, professor of emerging infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, at the conference. “There is a high probability that we will have a new variant.”
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