Published Dec 18, 2021, in Deseret.com
By Herb Scribner

The novel coronavirus could become an endemic disease by 2024, Pfizer executives said Friday.

Per CNBC, executives with the vaccine developer said the novel coronavirus could become a constant presence in our lives, leading to regional outbreaks every year, much like the flu.

• “We believe Covid will transition to an endemic state, potentially by 2024,” Nanette Cocero, global president of Pfizer Vaccines, said Friday, per CNBC.

Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer, said the future of the virus depends on vaccines and treatment.

• “When and how exactly this happens will depend on the evolution of the disease, how effectively society deploys vaccines and treatments, and equitable distribution to places where vaccination rates are low,” Dolsten said, per CNBC. “The emergence of new variants could also impact how the pandemic continues to play out.”

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has a new prediction about the end of the pandemic. She told ABC News that the pandemic will end when the U.S. sees a huge dip in deaths per day and when hospitals are not packed with COVID-19 patients.

• “We’ve gotten pretty cavalier about 1,100 deaths a day,” she said.
• “That’s an extraordinary amount of deaths in a single day from this disease,” Walensky said. “We can’t — I can’t — be in a position where that is OK.”

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the pandemic phase of the pandemic will end soon. This was before the omicron variant started to spread across the world, which has changed the way the pandemic is going.

• “I think that we’re close to the end of the pandemic phase of this virus, and we’re going to enter a more endemic phase and as things improve, cases may pick up,” Gottlieb said.

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