Coachella is back with an anticipated crowd size of up to 750,000 throughout the festival. And concertgoers are mask less for the most part, social distancing is not on anyone's mind and audience crowds sing their favorite songs together. It's hard to believe that only two years ago, public health officials were urging church congregations to limit singing activities to help stop the spread of COVID-19. For many, the return to Coachella is the first sign that COVID-19 restrictions are either gone or non-existent for the first time in over two years. And, as we all breathe a deep sigh of relief and enjoy each other's company, lurking in the back of many minds is a simple question. Is the pandemic really over? And who decides that it's over? 

As we embark on summer 2022, many public health officials are watching the decisions made by an 18-member committee within the World Health Organization. This committee meets every three months to convene and assess the status of the pandemic, ultimately deciding if the status of COVID-19 meets several criteria. These criteria include whether the public health event is severe, sudden, and likely to spread internationally. It’s not a scientific threshold that the committee has formulated to make these decisions, rather an opinion-based consensus that has implications beyond masking, social distancing, etc. The decisions made by this group has a financial impact on vaccine distributors such as Moderna, Pfizer, and Merck. Moderna pledged not to enforce patents on the vaccine until the pandemic ends. And Pfizer and Merck are currently allowing generic drugmakers to make their drugs until WHO declares the pandemic is over (Wadman, 2022).  The longer that the World Health Organization defines COVID-19 as a pandemic, the longer countries are encouraged to invest resources to reduce the spread of the disease internationally by providing resources and protection to countries who still need it.  And so, while the United States, United Kingdom and France may be entering the endemic stage of the pandemic, there are still countries throughout the world who are in much different stages (Shipman, 2022). 

The Public Health Emergency declaration by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services is another declaration to watch closely. This is currently in effect until at least mid-April and has implications for telehealth, waivers, and flexibility within the overall health system. Since a pandemic is defined as severe, sudden, and likely to spread internationally, it may be some time before the United States get to this stage, although local areas will be different. At the time of this writing, Johns Hopkins reported that the current seven-day average for daily new cases rose to 39,521, up from 30,724 two weeks earlier, signaling that as restrictions loosen up, this could coincide with an increase in case counts nationwide. A pandemic is over when the new cases of COVID-19 return to whatever the normal baseline is, which for a new disease such as COVID-19 is zero. Most experts agree that this is unlikely to happen. A more realistic baseline is a 7-day average for new daily cases below 1 per 100,000, signaling that the disease is under control but that we are not done with it forever (Shipman, 2022).

So, while we are all anxious for our return to exciting events like Coachella, we need to pay close attention to the case counts in our area and adjust our expectations for participation on the spot.  We may not ever go back to the levels of lockdown at the start of the pandemic, but we must remain flexible and vigilant for a while longer when deciding to participate in concerts, vacations, and ceremonial events.

References

Shipman, M. (2022, March 24). How doe we know when the pandemic is over? And what will normal be like? . Retrieved from NC State University: https://news.ncsu.edu/2022/03/how-do-we-know-when-the-pandemic-is-over/

Wadman, M. (2022, March 4). When is a pandemic over? . Retrieved from Science: https://www.science.org/content/article/when-pandemic-over