Routine contact tracing is being phased out and pre-departure Covid-19 test for international travellers will no longer be required. Governments are also lifting mandatory mask requirements.
But have we entered the post-Covid-19 pandemic era? The most valuable lesson of the Covid-19 pandemic is that as new variants spread, cases surge.
China, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong have recently experienced a surge in Covid-19 cases attributed to the Omicron BA.2 subvariant. In China, the city of Shanghai has gone into lockdown following a surge in infections, which now challenges China’s “zero-Covid” or Covid-19 elimination strategy.
European nations such as Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands have also been experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases due to the BA.2 subvariant.
About two weeks ago the United Kingdom reported a seven-day average of about 90,000 cases. The surge in Covid-19 cases may be fuelled by loosening of restrictions such as mask mandates, indoor capacity limits and waning immunity from vaccines or from prior infections.
Despite a decline in cases and hospitalisation in recent weeks in the United States of America, data from wastewater surveillance show an increase by an estimated 10 per cent.
It has been shown that individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection start shedding the virus in faecal matter even when they are asymptomatic. Hence, the presence of the virus in wastewater samples is predictive of community spread.
Here is why the surge in Europe, Asia and the early signs of community spread in the United States of America matter. Previous Covid-19 waves in the African continent have paralleled those across Europe, Asia and North America.
For example, Kenya’s first confirmed Covid-19 case on March 12, 2020, was a Kenyan returning from the United States of America via London, United Kingdom.
The exact reasons for the surge in Covid-19 cases in Europe and Asia are unclear at this point. But it is highly likely the result of a combination of changing public behaviour, especially the loosening of non-pharmaceutical measures, waning immunity and the fact the dominant Omicron subvariant is highly transmissible.
While experts expect an increase in Covid-19 cases globally because of the current trends in Europe and Asia, there is no consensus on the extent and how much disruption it will create, relative to past surges.
Scientists are yet to agree on whether Omicron is a much less severe Covid-19 variant because it encountered a fortress of immunity from prior widespread Delta variant infections and rising levels of vaccination, especially in Europe and North America.
But we know from the early weeks and months of the pandemic that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be lethal. The virus is known to be ferocious among what scientists call immunologically naïve populations, and especially older people and those who are immunocompromised or have underlying medical conditions.
We may well be in the post-pandemic phase of SARS-CoV-2. But we are entering the endemic phase, which can be equally disruptive. Hence, we must remain vigilant, learn fast and adapt quickly as new cases arise in our communities.
The views expressed are the writer’s
“WATCH: The latest videos from the Star”