Swiss Re Institute - Endemic Covid: the end of the pandemic?
As the world starts to reopen and we grapple with other, immediate global concerns, the virus's fate has only one outcome: it will become endemic in our society. Each major variant so far has been more transmissible than its predecessors and brings different symptoms and differing resistances and susceptibilities to vaccines or treatments. Resurgent waves of breakthrough infections, driven most recently by the Omicron variant, in vaccinated populations with waning immunity, remain an ongoing risk to economic recovery and healthcare.
There is no hard and fast definition of an epidemic, pandemic, or endemic disease. Individual countries will likely declare themselves out of the pandemic or having reached a state of endemicity, before there are wider global statements made by international public health bodies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO). There are already signs of countries such as Denmark, the UK and elsewhere in Europe are approaching this stage in early 2022.
And yet, there are still challenges. As we write, countries in Asia and Oceania such as Hong Kong and New Zealand are seeing record case numbers and deaths are climbing. It is too early to say that the world has defeated COVID-19.
Our report - entitled Endemic Covid: the end of the pandemic? - discusses some of the many factors which will chart the future course of this global disease, as well as outline further considerations for insurers.