As COVID-19 epidemic enters a new stage, epidemiologists who have been obsessed with tracking the diagnosis for more than a year have begun to focus on other measures. In countries that have been widely vaccinated such as the United Kingdom, the goal in the future is how to make COVID-19 epidemic controllable like influenza, and learn to coexist with it; but in places like Taiwan, where the vaccination rate is low, the focus of epidemic prevention is still to expand vaccination.
Before the start of vaccination in the United Kingdom, the United States, and European countries, the increase in the number of cases will almost translate into a surge in the number of hospitalized cases and deaths, but now scientists and government officials want to know whether widespread vaccination can break this cycle.
Take the UK as an example. About 46% of Britons have been fully vaccinated, reducing the number of daily deaths in the UK to the lowest point since last summer. However, confirmed cases of the more infectious Delta variant strain have almost doubled in the past week, and the number of hospitalizations has also increased, but most patients have not been fully vaccinated.
In this regard, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the extension of the lockdown for four weeks before his birthday, allowing more adults to receive a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to enhance the protection against the variant coronavirus (COVID-19). However, even if coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread between children and unvaccinated young people, the real test of the British anti-epidemic action is still whether the number of hospitalizations and deaths can be kept low; if it can be done, COVID-19 epidemic will It will begin to change from an uncontrollable pandemic to a seasonal disease that is more like the flu. For policy makers, this is the goal of future efforts. British Health Secretary Hancock said last week that Britain’s goal is to coexist with the virus, just like the flu.
Scientists pointed out that comparing the prevalence of COVID-19 and influenza will be an important measure of this autumn and winter. Influenza kills about 650,000 lives globally each year. Since the beginning of last year, more than 3.8 million people have died from COVID-19. However, vaccinated countries will eventually be able to deal with flu and treat the recurrence of COVID-19, and make corresponding decisions, such as whether to suspend classes.
However, there are still many countries that cannot ignore the number of COVID-19 cases. The number of new cases in Taiwan was almost zero at one time, but the lack of COVID-19 vaccine means that even a small-scale outbreak will be regarded as a major threat. Taiwan, where the epidemic heats up in May, highlights how vulnerable countries that have not been widely vaccinated are in the face of the virus threat. They must wait for more widespread vaccinations to relax their vigilance.
