As the leading Greek professor of Sterling Social and Natural Sciences at Yale University explained, we now have to manage the shock of the pandemic
We have already entered the second phase pandemic of the coronary artery and most likely from 2024 we will talk about the post-pandemic era, said the leading Greek professor Nikolas Christakis which, however, did not rule out the small but real possibility of a new dangerous variant, which will take us back to the beginning.
THE Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Sciences at Yale University, in a conversation with journalists during the Nostos Health conference organized by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, said that the first period of the pandemic is already past, as it was the phase of the spread of the virus and the development of immunity from the population. Vaccination and the fact that a large part of the population became ill contributed to this.
“From 2022 onwards we are living in the second period of the pandemic, during which we have to manage the shock of the pandemicHe explained and added that in this phase, people will continue to wear masks for a long time, travel has already been disrupted, children will have to go back to school and adapt again to this environment, the economy is being tested, etc.
After 2024 we will be able to experience the post-pandemic era, unless there is a new, more deadly form of the virus that does not respond to vaccines. The probability of this happening is from 1% to 10%, said the Yale professor. “It simply came to our notice then. “If a new variant of the virus suddenly appears that is more dangerous or the vaccines do not catch it, we will have to close our house again and wait for the pharmaceutical industry to release a new vaccine,” he added.
However, Mr. Christakis pointed out that “the chances of this happening are small, but I do not rule out it happening.” Of course, as he said, today we are better prepared not only for this possibility, but also for other pandemics of the future, as we now have in our hands the important discovery of mRNA vaccine technology.
If everything goes according to the good scenario in the end we will return to the life we ​​had before, he assured and predicted that there will be no dramatic changes: “I do not believe that social cohesion will be permanently disrupted, we will just have new ways of communication as we learn to use more technology “.
However, he acknowledged that some attitudes would be exacerbated in the post-coronary age, noting that “people’s extroversion, their need to socialize more, whether by going out to eat or exercising, will be enhanced, as will their desire for a more active sex life.” »
He predicted that it is possible that we will have more pandemics in the future, saying that now the period from one pandemic to another seems to be reduced to 20 to 30 years from the 50 years it was. “If the next one happens in 10 to 20 years, the experience from the coronavirus pandemic will be recent and we will be better prepared,” he concluded.
However, he said that the scientific community is concerned about the fact that in recent years “we are seeing an increase in the frequency of zoonoses and the reason is climate change. “Every ten years, these diseases have been increasing for the last fifty years.” As he said, these diseases are now transmitted from wild animals to humans and the reason is because humans have intervened in their living space.
As for the future of the coronavirus, he said that the virus that caused a great pandemic in 1918 still exists among us, but we are no longer dying from it, the same will happen to the coronavirus over time. “It will be an endemic virus, a cold that will pass but it takes a total of more than 5 years for this to happen,” he said.
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