These are the three possible evolutions of the pandemic proposed by the WHO: two of them are optimistic

The coronavirus pandemic dominates our lives since 2020, and until now we have experienced confinements, different limitations on our leisure and our movements, several waves, explosions of infections, and a vaccination campaign that has not yet ended. the expertss also want to know what will be next to which this health emergency leads us, and among the three possible evolutions of the pandemic that shuffles the World Health Organization (WHO), there are two that are relatively optimistic.

This has been highlighted by the director of Epidemic and Pandemic Diseases of the agency, Dr. Sylvie Briand, when speaking about the responses that the WHO prepares for the possible drifts that the virus follows.

The first scenario would mean a continuation of the current situationin which the coronavirus continues to spread but without causing excessive severe cases.

a second option would control the virus similarly to How is the flu season managed annually?. In that case, “the virus would continue to circulate but the vaccine would adapt to prevent it from causing many serious cases or hospitalizations”, which would surely require, as with the flu, annual vaccinations of risk groups and modified doses each season to respond to the evolution of the coronavirus.

The most pessimistic scenario: back to 2020

A third scenario, the most pessimistic, contemplates the emergence of new variants of the coronavirus“creating a situation comparable to that of 2020when people were still very vulnerable and serious forms of the disease were likely to develop,” the epidemiologist warned.

Briand has clarified that These scenarios handled by the WHO “are not predictions” but ways of responding cautiously to the current evolution of the pandemic, in which there is still uncertainty “and five variants of concern have already been seen to emerge, so a sixth could emerge”.

One of the fields that, according to the expert, is still not well understood by science in the current pandemic, which adds uncertainty, is the behavior of the coronavirus in other speciesso a new variant “could occur in the animal kingdom and we hope that in this case it will be quickly detected”.

With all this analysis, the WHO expert warns that “we are not yet at the end of the tunnel, we need to see how it evolves the situation in the coming months and there are still risks of new variants, but at least with ómicron there have been fewer hospitalizations and this has reduced the pressure on medical centers”.