‘The end is in sight’: Experts express optimism about COVID-19 pandemic coming to a close
Original article from The Boston Globe , 2020
While the coronavirus continued to rip through the country and daily counts of new infections rose to record heights, the seemingly impossible occurred: good news.
Promising trials from Pfizer and Moderna suggest that highly effective COVID-19 vaccines could be available in a matter of weeks, bringing the end of the pandemic in view for the first time since March.
But the end of the pandemic does not necessarily mean the eradication of COVID-19, epidemiologists said. The closing act of this public health calamity is likely to be a gradual return to a new normal, with infections, restrictions, and public health fears falling away one by one rather than all at once. Getting there will not be as simple as getting a shot, but with effective vaccines, robust distribution plans, widespread testing, and continued social distancing through the winter — all possible but hardly assured — our exit from the pandemic could come much sooner than many dared hope.
“The virus is not likely to go away, maybe ever, but certainly not for a long time,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “But that said, we’re not going to be living like this forever, and in fact, I expect by springtime that things will start really getting much, much better. And then it’ll continue to get better. And at some point, we will no longer feel like we’re living in the middle of a pandemic.”