Recent declines in the number of Covid-19 cases in Arkansas and the United States have raised hopes that the pandemic could soon be less of a threat. Some health officials have expressed concern that active case numbers are still too high, and it would be a mistake to remove precautions too quickly. How to balance public health with economic needs is highly controversial.
A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal by a professor at John Hopkins School of Medicine is predicting Covid will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.
“There is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection,” the editorial by Dr. Marty Makary said. “As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected.”
Makary said testing has been capturing only from 10-25 percent of infections, and he estimates 55 percent of Americans have natural immunity and 15 percent have received the vaccine.
“This pandemic may be tailing out,” Dr. Dan Bell of the ECHO clinic said. “I am starting to see some hope. Case numbers are back to where we were in September of last year. There is something happening we haven’t figured out. There are some people with immunity who don’t realize it. People who have been careless have probably already gotten it. Now with vaccinations, the pandemic may possibly wind down quicker than we think. I don’t think there is unanimous agreement to that because health authorities still want people to be cautious. But there is a glimmer of hope we may be seeing the other side of this not just here, but worldwide.”
Makary said while everyone is encouraged to get a vaccine, we also need to reopen schools and society to limit the damage of closures and prolonged isolation. “Contingency planning for an open economy by April can deliver hope to those in despair and to those who have made large personal sacrifices,” Makary said.
Local retired scientist Pat Costner said we can hope Makary is right.
“However, other experts suggest that he has not considered the newly emerging and more infectious Covid-19 variants,” she said. “For example, cases started declining in the U.K., but surged massively after the B117 variant of the virus became dominant.”
Costner is concerned other experts have not come to the same conclusion as Makary, and that some people may feel so encouraged by his message that they relax precautions. She suggested people take Makary’s opinions with a grain a salt and in the meantime, wear a mask and social distance.
Costner said the incidence of Covid-19 is believed to be dropping rapidly because of social distancing, seasonality, seroprevalence (the percentage of the population that tests positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies) and vaccines. Coronaviruses in the Northern Hemisphere tend to peak in the winter. Costner said according to the CDC, the number of adults in the U.S who have been infected with Covid is 15-30 percent, which is significantly lower than what Makary is estimating.
However, Costner points to a Feb. 19 article in The Atlantic that concludes: “Even if the rise of new variants slows the decline in cases, it is unlikely to lead to a sharp rise in mortality and hospitalizations. Although the pandemic isn’t over, we have perhaps reached the beginning of the end of COVID-19 as an exponential, existential, and mortal threat to our health-care system and our senior population.”