The new coronavirus pandemic is likely to last for at least another 18 months to two years until it has infected 60%-70% of the population, based on the prediction of a team of longstanding pandemic experts.
The team recommended US to prepare for a worst-case scenario which includes a second big wave of coronavirus infections during the fall and winter. Even in the predicted best-case scenario, people will continue to die from the virus.
According to Mike Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, the coronavirus is not going to stop until it infects 60 to 70 percent of people. He added that the idea that is going to be done soon defies microbiology.
Osterholm has been writing about the threat of pandemic for 20 years and has advised numerous presidents. He wrote the report along with Marc Lipsitch, Harvard School of Public Health epidemiologist who is a top expert on pandemic; John Barry, a historian who wrote the book "The Great Influenza" about the 1918 flu pandemic in 2004; and Dr. Kristine Moore, former epidemiologist of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who is now the present medical director for CIDRAP.
The team has written that the length of a pandemic will likely be 18 to 24 months, as herd immunity gradually develops in the human population since COVID-19 is new and no one has any immunity.
Predictions of the team are unlike the models published by Imperial College London, predicting millions of deaths in both US and UK helped galvanize responses by the governments or the models presented by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington or
The CIDRAP-led team utilized the reports of historical data on past pandemics and produced reports regarding the medical details of COVID-19 to formulate their forecast.
In addition, Lipsitch said in an interview that in trying to understand how the infectious disease is going to unfold, one should rely on history and models. He uttered that pandemic infections don't tend to die down in the summer as seasonal flu does.
They said the new coronavirus pandemic is comparable to a pandemic strain of influenza.
The team wrote in the report that more asymptomatic spread and a high RO, average number of other people infected by each patient, COVID-19 appears to spread easily than flu, because of the long incubation period.
According to the team, a higher RO means more people will need to get infected and become immune before the pandemic can end and added that based on the most recent flu pandemics, the new coronavirus outbreak will likely last 18 to 24 months.
As stated by the team, government officials should stop telling people the pandemic could be ending and instead prepare citizens for a long haul.
The team advised government officials to develop concrete plans, which includes triggers for re-instituting mitigation measures, for dealing with disease peaks when they occur.
Lipsitch and Osterholm said they are surprised by the decisions of many states to lift restrictions aimed at controlling the spread of the virus.
Moreover, Lipsitch said he thinks it is an experiment that will likely cost lives, especially in places that do it without careful controls to try to figure out when to try to slow things down again. He added that some states are choosing to lift restrictions when they have recorded more new infections than they had when they decided to impose the restrictions.
Lipsitch finds it hard to understand the rationale.
The report said a vaccine could assist but not immediately. They wrote on the report that the course of the pandemic could be influenced by a vaccine; however, a vaccine will likely be unavailable until at least some time in 2021.
The team is uncertain what kind of challenges could arise during vaccine development that could delay the timeline.
