COVID-19 to endanger public health until 2025, says study

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is over, the disease remains a threat as it is predicted to become a significant danger to public health in the next 2 years, particularly in the US, according to a study. Wide-ranging vaccination, however, can counter this potential problem.

“Our results show that COVID-19 will likely remain a major threat to human health in the US in the coming years,” said the researchers, led by Sung-mok Jung from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US. “In the face of this threat, broad vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives each year.”

The COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub sought projections of hospitalization and deaths due to COVID-19 between 15 April 2023 and 15 April 2025. Six scenarios showing the intersection of considered levels of immune escape and vaccination were made. Eight modeling teams generated projections for each scenario and expected reductions in disease outcomes due to vaccination over the projection period.

Based on the models, COVID-19 is expected to cause annual epidemics, which will peak from November to January between 2023 and 2025. [PLoS Med 2024;21:e1004387]

The most pessimistic scenario (ie, high immune escape, no vaccination recommendation) projected 2.1 million (90 percent projection interval [PI], 1,438,000‒4,270,000) hospitalization and 209,000 (90 PI, 139,000‒461,000) deaths, higher than prepandemic deaths due to influenza and pneumonia.

In high immune escape scenarios, vaccinating people aged ≥65 years may bring about 230,000 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 104,000‒355,000) fewer hospitalizations and 33,000 (95 percent CI, 12,000‒54,000) fewer deaths, and vaccinating all eligible individuals may lead to 431,000 (95 percent CI, 264,000‒598,000) fewer hospitalizations and 49,000 (95 percent CI, 29,000‒69,000) fewer deaths.

“Based on the ensemble of projections from eight modeling teams for the next 2 years, it is expected that COVID-19 will remain a persistent public health threat in the US for the foreseeable future,” said Jung. “Nevertheless, our projections highlight that annual vaccination with reformulated vaccines can substantially mitigate this burden if coverage reaches levels observed for the first COVID-19 booster.”

Vaccines work

“While the projected impact of annual vaccination on disease burden is significant, it is highly dependent on assumed vaccine uptake,” the researchers said. “This gives us reason for both caution and hope.”

Previous recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), such as that for the 2022 reformulated vaccine (ie, bivalent vaccines authorized in August 2022), fell short of hitting the coverage target for the first booster. [https://data.cdc.gov/Vaccinations/COVID-19-Vaccination-Demographics-in-the-United-St/km4m-vcsb]

“Reduced coverage would substantially blunt the impact of any vaccine recommendations,” Walters said.

“However, it is worth noting that many states where we assume low vaccination coverage … have not historically been ranked among the states with the lowest vaccine coverage for annual influenza vaccines, suggesting potential for increasing vaccine uptake in these regions,” he added. [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/coverage-1819estimates.htm]