Learning how to live with the virus is ‘victory'

Why is eradication so hard? It’s because pathogens, once established, hardly ever go extinct. We’ve succeeded in eliminating only one major infectious killer: smallpox. A terrible disease that killed 30% of all victims, smallpox was last reported in 1977 in Somalia

A year into the pandemic, infection rates are falling. Hospitals are quieter; morgues are emptier. Emboldened by vaccines, we’re dropping our masks and stepping closer. Slowly we’re reopening indoor dining, theaters, museums and schools.

Will we declare victory over COVID-19? No, say public health experts. But we’ll negotiate an uneasy truce. Rather than completely eliminating the virus, we can create a strict containment strategy, building public health bulwarks to help fend off an enemy that is wily, adaptive, and enduring.

This means accepting a certain level of risk as society returns to normal, they add.

“Here’s what we can call ‘victory’: Learning how to live with this virus in a way that allows us to continue to enjoy life,” said Dr. John Swartzberg of UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health.

Over time — as vaccines improve, death tolls fall and we adopt new behaviors, like wearing masks when we’re sick — we’ll accommodate it, just as we do with other deadly infectious diseases, he said.

In the past year, there have been unimaginable strides against the virus. With accelerated plans for manufacturing vaccines, President Joe Biden now promises enough vaccine supply for every adult in America by the end of May. Some states, such as Texas, are already racing to fully reopen.

But there is increasing consensus that COVID-19 is here to stay, causing intermittent, limited outbreaks in the US and other countries with well-developed vaccination programs but causing significant ongoing disease in parts of the world where access to vaccines is more limited.