Have the last two years of trying to prevent the spread of COVID-19 been a waste?
Absolutely not.
After we posted the update this morning that BA.2 is now the dominant strain of SARS-CoV-2, we received many comments and messages conveying exhaustion, frustration, anxiety, anger, and sadness.
A common theme was: we have altered our lives and sacrificed so much these last couple of years to prevent the spread of COVID-19 yet, here we are, with no end in sight and new variants cropping up every few months. Was it all futile? Was it all for naught?
The answer is... absolutely not. We will be examining our pandemic response for decades to come and it's safe to say there were some missteps along the way but, no, our mitigation measures were largely successful and were certainly not in vain.
Per the Commonwealth Fund, in the absence of a vaccination program, there would have been approximately 1.1 million additional COVID-19 deaths and more than 10.3 million additional COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. by November 2021.
Without the U.S. vaccination program, COVID-19 deaths would have been approximately 3.2 times higher and COVID-19 hospitalizations approximately 4.9 times higher than the actual toll during 2021.
If no one had been vaccinated, daily deaths from COVID-19 could have jumped to as high as 21,000 per day — nearly 5.2 times the level of the record peak of more than 4,000 deaths per day recorded in January 2021.
Other mitigation measures such as masking and physical distancing have prevented millions more hospitalizations and deaths.
In addition to severe illness prevented and lives saved, the steps we have collectively taken these past couple of years have helped us bide our time in order to learn more about the virus, study it, and develop effective treatments and antivirals to help us live with the virus and return to normalcy.
While we aren't quite there yet (and are still awaiting vaccines for children under 5) we have made incredible strides and may soon achieve endemic status. Stay positive, hang in there. Science is incredible and we are making great progress against COVID-19 with every day that passes.
Sources:
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/.../us-covid-19...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05041-0
https://www.mayoclinic.org/.../coronavirus-mask/art-20485449
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7883189/
https://doi.org/10.26099/wm2j-mz32
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768086
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118