[amrcnimgrnt]

The pandemic will never end, no matter how many ppl we vaccinate in the West.

We'll never vaccinate Central Asia and Africa. Even if we could, COVID bifurcates quicker than we can vaccinate the world. Ergo COVID will never go extinct.

[armada651]

I think most experts have already said they expect it to be endemic going forward. But we can definitely use vaccines to get it to levels where it no longer qualifies as a pandemic.

[amrcnimgrnt]

Fair enough, but then you have to tell me at what level is the "pandemic over" for all practical purposes.

We're at a seven day avg. of 300deaths/day right now. Car fatalities are 100deaths/day [2] . Smoking is >1000 death/day [3]. So we're near the geometric mean between smokes and cars.

[1] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_deathsinlast... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/motor-vehicle-safety/index.ht... [3] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...

[lamontcg]

One metric I follow is that we need to not be having headlines like this one:

"13 hospitals in Mississippi have no ICU beds available due to COVID-19 Delta variant spike"

https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/local/13-hospitals-mississ...

At some point we transition to an endemic virus with a background rate of disease which is similar to influenza or colds, but we aren't there yet when its filling up the ICUs. And if everyone would get vaccinated, then we'd be there today.

[armada651]

For practical purposes most people will consider the pandemic over when the local epidemic is over. Which is when COVID infections reach a stable baseline and we're not experiencing multiple major outbreaks simultaneously.

In other words, it's over when this map is mostly blue and yellow: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_community

[amrcnimgrnt]

Thank you for giving me an objective metric, but I don't think the objective standard follows from your first sentence: most people consider the pandemic over in their local area.

[armada651]

I didn't say local area. A pandemic is an epidemic in multiple countries. So when I say "local epidemic" I mean the epidemic in their country.

I expect that some countries will reach herd immunity and have no major outbreaks anymore while there are still outbreaks across other parts of the world.