Editorial: COVID-19 emergency is over, but virus is still here


After three lengthy and troublesome years, the federal COVID-19 public well being emergency ends Thursday. The World Well being Group declared the coronavirus emergency was over globally the week earlier than, and earlier this 12 months California ended its pandemic state of emergency.

However make no mistake: The emergency response might have ended, however COVID-19 continues to be with us. The virus that has formally killed about 7 million individuals worldwide (and really seemingly many extra unofficially), and greater than 1.1 million individuals in america, continues to be sickening hundreds day by day. Persons are nonetheless dying. Thousands and thousands are nonetheless affected by the lack of family members, alternatives and funds. A brand new, extra infectious Omicron subvariant, Arcturus, is circulating in Los Angeles, together with a brand-new symptom: pink eye.

Now we’re shifting into the subsequent section, during which we handle the waves of an infection which can be more likely to proceed for the foreseeable future, whereas in search of new medicines and therapies to cut back transmission, deal with an infection and assist the many individuals nonetheless affected by infections they contracted months, even years earlier.

It’s not sure how many individuals have the situation often called lengthy COVID, although well being consultants estimate it could be within the thousands and thousands. A examine by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention final 12 months discovered that almost one-fifth of Individuals who had COVID over the earlier two years had been nonetheless experiencing signs, which embrace fever, dizziness, cognitive dysfunction and coronary heart palpitations.

Most troubling, analysis by the Nationwide Institutes of Well being has discovered disparities within the analysis of lengthy COVID. Latino and Black persons are extra more likely to develop long-term signs after the preliminary an infection, however are much less more likely to be correctly identified. These are communities that already skilled a excessive fee of COVID-related deaths and financial fallout from pandemic measures, and proceed to lack correct entry to medical remedy. It’s unacceptable that they need to proceed to endure disproportionately.

It’s irritating that policymakers haven’t taken the steps crucial to arrange for the following public well being emergency, which embrace taking a list of the methods the nation stumbled (early testing snafus, lack of provides and little federal/state coordination of sources, simply to call just a few) in order that we will put higher techniques in place.

Sure, drug firms had been capable of develop vaccines in lower than a 12 months after the pandemic started, however we will’t depend on that taking place with each new infectious illness. However it appears as if lawmakers need to neglect the horrible instances. A bipartisan invoice that might have created a 9/11-style fee to evaluation state and federal responses stays stalled in Congress.

That’s a disgrace, as a result of scientists inform us that humanity might face one other lethal pandemic a lot earlier than the century between the 1918 influenza pandemic and COVID. Because the emergency ends, the nation’s well being and political leaders should not let go of the urgency to construct a stronger public well being response for the following public well being disaster.