By PAUL NATINSKY
Despite perceptions to the contrary, the COVID 19 pandemic is not over. Notwithstanding the return of crowds, the diminishment of mask wearers and the back-page treatment of pandemic news, the virus continues to circulate and the risk of resurgence looms.

“We’re certainly not done with it. We still have nationally a few hundred people a day dying from COVID. If you look at the overall mortality numbers, it’s still multiple times the number of deaths we see, say, from influenza. So it certainly has not faded into the background,” said Dr. Justin Skrzynski, a hospitalist with BHSH System, who has worked with COVID patients since the pandemic began.

Dr. Dennis Cunningham looks at COVID numbers on a daily basis. He says cases per 100,000 population are up, but they are mostly outpatients. He is not seeing serious disease numbers rising. Very few are coming into intensive care.

VIRULENT VARIANTS?

“The big question in my mind is when is the next new variant going to come up because that could change things a lot. But right now, things are probably better than they’ve been in the last three years,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham, who is System Director of Infection Control and Prevention at Henry Ford Health System, said a new variant could put us back in the early days of the pandemic. Vaccines might not initially work and we could see high hospital numbers.

But for now there is no virulent new variant. The Just-released vaccine booster protects against new strains B.4 and B.5 as well as the original virus. Life has returned to normal for most people. And things could stay that way.

Effective treatments bolster a sense of confidence. Antivirals, drugs such as Paxlovid, when combined with inexpensive and abundant COVID tests, help clean up what vaccines and infection-instilled immunity don’t prevent.

Skrzynski said roughly 80 to 90 percent of the population has had COVID or have had the vaccine.

But there remain vulnerable populations, and they are not just the elderly and immune-suppressed cancer patients. Skrzynski says many people believe they are in peak physical condition, but actually find themselves in a high-risk group. Obesity is epidemic in our society, but many who are overweight don’t consider themselves at increased risk.

UNPREPARED

The entire population is facing an unpredictable future because there is no way of knowing when or if a severe variant could surface. If a deadly version of COVID does emerge, preparations are lacking.

“What as a society have we done to prevent the spread of another disease like this? Honestly, it’s not much,” said Skrzynski.

“I think we need to think about public health infrastructure,” said Cunningham. “One of the things that is often cut in government budgets is public health. People don’t always see the need for it. It’s not very glamorous, but you get a pandemic and all of a sudden you realize how it is important.”

Skrzynski said the number of healthcare professionals who left the system after enduring the pandemic’s hardest days has opened up further vulnerabilities.

Despite the challenges, Cunningham says Henry Ford is prepared for a resurgence.

This could all be academic as the virus could peter out over time like the 1918 flu, with successive surges becoming smaller until the disease no longer presents a major threat. But it could be critical if COVID or another pandemic gain a foothold and stress the healthcare system to its limits.

In the meantime, masks and social distancing are the best defense against COVID. Skrzynski says N-95 and KN-95 masks provide very good protection against the virus, while other, more permeable masks help limit the spread from the wearer, but don’t do much to protect the wearer from incoming viruses.

Cunningham says he masks up when he knows he will encounter a crowd, particularly indoors. He keeps a box of grocery store bought masks in his car.