After nearly a year of disastrous COVID news, it emerged in mid-February like a light at the end of the tunnel. Infections began dramatically falling and “herd immunity,” some experts began to say, could spell the end of the pandemic in the not-so-distant future.
At some point this year – estimates range from mid-summer to as early as April – thanks to vaccinations and recovered cases, America will reach a point where enough people are immune to the virus that it can no longer spread through the population.
But while the prospect of stopping COVID-19 transmission, which has claimed a mind-boggling 500,000 lives, is undeniably good news, the update comes at a time when immunologists and virologists have begun to agree that complete eradication of COVID appears unlikely, and that the virus may become endemic, meaning it could circulate in pockets of the global population for years to come.
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