Ontario’s chief physician said Tuesday it could take “a couple of years” for COVID-19 to reach “low and endemic rates” in the province.
Dr. Kieran Moore made the remarks during a COVID-19 briefing in Queen’s Park.
A reporter asked Moore if COVID is “something we will have to learn to live with” and if it will ever go away.
Moore responded by saying that COVID-19 is a “global disease” and as such, global immunization must increase considerably before rates of the virus decline substantially.
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“We have a long way to go with the World Health Organization and other international organizations to try to decrease the number of people in whom this virus can mutate and / or spread,” he said.
“Within Canada and Ontario in particular, I see a day where we will have low and endemic rates of viruses.”
Moore said international surveillance is likely still required to monitor changes in COVID-19 strains.
“But I see a time when we will have low endemic rates and it will turn out to be like influenza or other winter respiratory viruses where there is a seasonality, where it has an intermittent impact on our health care system and just like influenza, it takes a annual vaccine to protect against it, ”he said.
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Moore said influenza and COVID-19 vaccines may be combined to create an annual injection that provides protection “against whatever new circulating strain is.”
“That can take a couple of years to see that low endemic rate and then the effect of winter where the virus is most commonly active during November through March,” he said.
The World Health Organization previously told Global News that if a disease is “present throughout the world but at normal or expected levels,” it would be considered endemic.
Moore said the goal is to limit the spread of COVID-19 and its impact on “mental, physical, social and economic well-being.”
He again repeatedly called for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 if they haven’t already, as it provides strong protection against serious diseases.
Experts who spoke to Reuters previously said they expect the first countries to emerge from the pandemic have had some combination of high vaccination rates and natural immunity among people infected with the coronavirus, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal and India.
But they cautioned that SARS-CoV-2 remains an unpredictable virus that is mutating as it spreads through unvaccinated populations.
Neither would completely rule out what some called an “apocalyptic scenario,” in which the virus mutates to the point of eluding hard-earned immunity. However, they expressed growing confidence that many countries will have left the worst of the pandemic behind over the next year.
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Meanwhile, Ontario’s seven-day average of COVID-19 cases continues to rise with 928 new cases being reported Tuesday. Last Tuesday 687 cases were reported. The seven-day average has now reached 975, which is up from the previous week when it was 794.
Ontario’s COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board released a model Tuesday indicating that COVID cases and ICU admissions are expected to increase in the coming weeks.
The Ontario government has said it would not like to implement province-wide restrictions in the future and would instead like to see individual public health units implement restrictions if necessary.
Ontario currently has a plan to lift almost all public health restrictions by the end of March, depending on COVID-19 trends.
– with files from Gabby Rodrigues, Saba Aziz and Reuters
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