“If this pandemic can end! It’s a wish, a sigh and a cry that is heard more and more often, louder and louder, as the pandemic soon enters its second year. Vaccines have been designed and manufactured at record speed. With them appears, according to the time-honored expression, “the light at the end of the tunnel”. However, beyond this tunnel, unpleasant surprises can arise. Already, some mutations have occurred in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. These variants are more contagious and possibly more virulent. In a way, we are witnessing the emergence of COVID-21 …
In addition, other zoonoses – diseases transmissible from animals to humans – will arise due to the increasing proximity of animals and people. WHO estimates that globally, zoonoses account for about 60% of diseases transmissible to humans and 75% of emerging infections.
There is no point in waiting for the end of this pandemic. We must learn to live with viruses: maintain physical distancing, observe strict hygiene, wear a mask, protect the most vulnerable. We must stop telling each other stories: “it will be fine” or “everything will soon return to normal”.
If we admit that viruses are here for good, we must carefully and gradually open the places that are closed at this time. The draconian measures not only cause well-known psychological damage, but they cause fatigue among the population followed by a general rejection of the restrictions. We could consider, for example, opening museums and libraries and observing the evolution of the number of contaminations for three or four weeks. If the positivity rate does not change, we open other places, gyms or hair salons. Then, we reopen with all the necessary precautions the other places now closed.
Public Health knows which places are least at risk for the spread of viruses and what measures to take to reduce contagion as much as possible.
No, we are not pessimistic, but realistic. It is only by looking at reality as it is that we will get out of it and resume a more normal and pleasant life.
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