Covid-19: towards an end to the pandemic? Several scientists believe in it

After two years of incessant waves, will the pandemic finally fade? In any case, this is what certain scientists, until then reserved about the end of the epidemic, suggest. Because the indicators seem to be gradually turning green. Several regions – Corsica and Île-de-France – are seeing their number of contaminations decrease day after day, while the number of patients admitted to critical care at the national level has stabilized.

For Professor Alain Fischer, president of the Council for the orientation of the vaccine strategy, the fifth wave could end in two months. “In March, we should arrive at a very good control of the current wave”, he estimated in recent days in the columns of The Express. “A period of calm should then open up before us.”

If France is still in turmoil, Omicron is the main cause. This variant, initially discovered in southern Africa and highly contagious, however, seems less dangerous than the Delta. “In our infectious disease department, patients who come into the hospital stay for a day or two, need some oxygen and come out. This was not the case before”, indicates on LCI Dr. Robert Sebbag, infectiologist at Pitié-Salpêtrière (see video below).

Above all, if it represents more than 90% of contaminations, this variant leads to fewer serious forms. “The Omicron is around 12 to 15% in intensive care, in non-vaccinated people, often elderly and with comorbidities”, says Dr. Sebbag. Since then, “the worst-case scenario is slipping away”, rejoices Professor Arnaud Fontanet, member of the Scientific Council, at the microphone of France Inter. “Hospital admissions are expected to peak in the coming week.”

And then ? With a significant number of people infected in recent weeks with Omicron, and a vaccination campaign in full swing, “there will be fewer people to infect”, says Dr. Sebbag. “UK Science Council says beware of possible resurgence in spring, when people with immunity will be less so”, however tempers Philippe Froguel, professor of medicine at the Lille University Hospital, on LCI.

But the possibility that this wave will be the last of this magnitude, like what the Minister of Health Olivier Véran had estimated in early January, seems real. “We are starting to reschedule operations that had been delayed. Little by little, we will return to normality”, assures Dr. Sebbag. “I think we can be reasonably optimistic for the future”, says Philippe Froguel. “This pandemic will eventually go away.”

A hypothesis now seriously considered by the authorities. In Switzerland, the Minister of Health considers that we are “perhaps on the eve of a turning point which could be decisive with the passage from a pandemic phase to an endemic phase”.

“Nobody knows exactly when we will be at the end of the tunnel, but we will get there”, wants to believe for his part the head of the vaccine strategy of the European Medicines Agency, Marco Cavaleri. “With the increase in immunity in the population and with Omicron, there will be a lot of natural immunity in addition to vaccination”, he continues. “We will move quickly towards a scenario that will be closer to endemicity.”

This does not mean, however, the end of Covid-19. “People oppose pandemic and endemic, but endemic malaria kills hundreds of thousands of people, HIV is endemic, violence is endemic in our cities”, said Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO emergency manager, on Tuesday. “Endemic by itself doesn’t mean it’s good, endemic just means it’s there forever.”