Is the coronavirus on its way out?
You might think so. New, updated booster shots are being rolled out to better protect against the variants circulating now. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has dropped COVID-19 quarantine and distancing recommendations. And more people have thrown off their masks and returned to pre-pandemic activities.
But scientists say no. They predict the scourge that's already lasted longer than the 1918 flu pandemic will linger far into the future.
There are still a few ways you can get free or affordable COVID tests or at-home rapid test kits. Trinity Chavez has the details.
One reason it's lasted this long? It's gotten better and better at getting around immunity from vaccination and past infection. Scientists point to emerging research that suggests the latest omicron variant gaining ground in the U.S. — BA.4.6, which was responsible for around 8% of new U.S. infections last week — appears to be even better at evading the immune system than the dominant BA.5.
Scientists worry the virus may well keep evolving in worrisome ways.
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HOW LONG WILL IT BE AROUND?
White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said COVID-19 will likely be with us for the rest of our lives.
Experts expect COVID-19 will someday become endemic, meaning it occurs regularly in certain areas according to established patterns. But they don't think that will be very soon.
Still, living with COVID "should not necessarily be a scary or bad concept," since people are getting better at fighting it, Jha said during a recent question-and-answer session with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "Obviously if we take our foot off the gas — if we stop updating our vaccines, we stop getting new treatments — then we could slip backwards."
Experts say COVID will keep causing serious illness in some people. The COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub made some pandemic projections spanning August 2022 to May 2023, assuming the new tweaked boosters adding protection for the newest omicron relatives would be available and a booster campaign would take place in fall and winter. In the most pessimistic scenario — a new variant and late boosters — they projected 1.3 million hospitalizations and 181,000 deaths during that period. In the most optimistic scenario — no new variant and early boosters — they projected a little more than half the number of hospitalizations and 111,000 deaths.
Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute, said the world is likely to keep seeing repetitive surges until "we do the things we have to do," such as developing next generation vaccines and rolling them out equitably.
Topol said the virus "just has too many ways to work around our current strategies, and it'll just keep finding people, finding them again, and self-perpetuating."
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HOW WILL THE VIRUS MUTATE?
Scientists expect more genetic changes that affect parts of the spike protein studding the surface of the virus, letting it attach to human cells.
"Every time we think we've seen the peak transmission, peak immune escape properties, the virus exceeds that by another significant notch," Topol said.
But the virus probably won't keep getting more transmissible forever.
"I think there is a limit," said Matthew Binnicker, director of clinical virology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "What we're really dealing with, though, is there's still a lot of people across the world who don't have any prior immunity — either they haven't been infected or they haven't had access to vaccination."
If humanity's baseline level of immunity rises significantly, he said, the rate of infections, and with that emergence of more contagious variants, should slow down.
But there is a chance the virus could mutate in a way that causes more severe illness.
"There's not any inherent reason, biologically, that the virus has to become milder over time," said Dr. Wesley Long, a pathologist at Houston Methodist. The fact it may seem milder now "is likely just the combined effect of all of us having some immune history with the virus."
While scientists hope that continues, they also point out that immunity gradually wanes.
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WILL THE NEXT VARIANT BE ANOTHER VERSION OF OMICRON?
Omicron has been around since late last year, with a series of super transmissible versions quickly displacing one another, and Binnicker believes "that will continue at least for the next few months."
But down the road, he said it's likely a new variant distinct from omicron will pop up.
The recent wave of infections and re-infections, he said, "gives the virus more chances to spread and mutate and new variants to emerge."
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CAN PEOPLE INFLUENCE THE FUTURE OF THE VIRUS?
Yes, experts said.
One way, they said, is to get vaccinated and boosted. Not only does that protect against severe disease and death, it raises the level of immunity globally. They said people should also keep protecting themselves by, for example, wearing masks indoors when COVID rates are high.
CDC director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday that up to 100,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations and 9,000 deaths could be prevented if Americans get the updated booster at the same rate they typically get an annual flu shot this fall. About half of Americans are typically vaccinated against the flu each year.
Longtime nurse Catherine Mirabile said it's important not to dismiss the dangers of the coronavirus – which sickened her twice, nearly killed her husband and left them both with long COVID. Daily deaths still average around 450 in the U.S.
"People really need to look at this and still take this seriously," said the 62-year-old from Princeton, West Virginia, who is now on disability. "They could end up in the same shape we're in."
Should you get a new COVID-19 booster? If so, when?
Q: How are the new boosters different?
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Answer: They're combination or "bivalent" shots that contain half the original vaccine that's been used since December 2020 and half protection against today's dominant omicron versions, BA.4 and BA.5. It's the first update to COVID-19 vaccines ever cleared by the Food and Drug Administration.
Q: Who's eligible?
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Answer: Updated shots made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech are authorized for anyone 12 and older, and rival Moderna's version is for adults. They're to be used as a booster for anyone who's already had their primary vaccination series -- using shots from any U.S.-cleared company -- and regardless of how many boosters they've already gotten.
Q: If I just got one of the original boosters, should I get the new kind right away?
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Answer: No. The FDA set the minimum wait time at two months. But advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it's better to wait longer. Some advise at least three months, another said someone who's not at high risk might wait as long as six months.
"If you wait a little more time, you get a better immunologic response," said CDC adviser Dr. Sarah Long of Drexel University.
That's because someone who recently got a booster already has more virus-fighting antibodies in their bloodstream. Antibodies gradually wane over time, and another shot too soon won't offer much extra benefit, explained Wherry, who wasn't involved with the government's decision-making.
Q: What if I recently recovered from COVID-19?
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Answer: It's still important to get vaccinated even if you've already been infected -- but timing matters here, too.
The CDC has long told people to defer vaccination until they've recovered but also that people may consider waiting for three months after recovering to get a vaccination. And several CDC advisers say waiting the three months is important, both for potentially more benefit from the shot and to reduce chances of a rare side effect, heart inflammation, that sometimes affects teen boys and young men.
Q: How much benefit will the new boosters offer?
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Answer: That's not clear, because tests of this exact recipe have only just begun in people.
The FDA cleared the new boosters based in large part on human studies of a similarly tweaked vaccine that's just been recommended by regulators in Europe. Those tweaked shots target an earlier omicron strain, BA.1, that circulated last winter, and studies found they revved up people's virus-fighting antibodies.
With that earlier omicron version now replaced by BA.4 and BA.5, the FDA ordered an additional tweak to the shots — and tests in mice showed they spark an equally good immune response.
There's no way to know if antibodies produced by an omicron-matched booster might last longer than a few months. But a booster also is supposed to strengthen immune system memory, adding to protection against serious illness from the ever-mutating virus.
Q: How do we know they're safe?
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Answer: The basic ingredients used in both omicron-targeting updated vaccines are the same. Testing by Pfizer and Moderna of their BA.1-targeted versions proved safe in human studies and CDC's advisers concluded the additional small recipe change should be no different.
Flu vaccines are updated every year without human trials.
Q: Can I get a new COVID-19 booster and a flu shot at the same time?
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Answer: Yes, one in each arm.
Q: What if I want to wait?
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Answer: People at high risk from COVID-19 are encouraged to get the new booster when they're due. After all, BA.5 still is spreading widely and hospitalization rates in older adults have increased since spring.
Most Americans eligible for an updated booster have gone at least six months since their last shot, according to the CDC — plenty of time that another shot should trigger a good immune response.
But the original formula still offers good protection against severe illness and death, especially after that all-important first booster. So it's not uncommon for younger and healthier people to time boosters to take advantage of a shot's temporary jump in protection against even a mild infection.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
