Covid-19: When will the world be free of it?

”When will the world be free of corona?”is the frequently asked question ever since the pandemic began wreaking havoc across the globe.

According to Indian-American physician Vivek Murthy, who had served as the Surgeon General of the United States under President Obama and President Trump, our skewed perception about the pandemic leads to such questions. According to him, success over Covid-19 is very few people in the hospital and very few dying rather than no Covid-19 cases.

“It is really important that we convey that success does not equal no cases,” Murthy said in an interview with POLITICO. “Success looks like very few people in the hospital and very few dying,” Murthy added.

“The vaccines do work, he stressed. Breakthrough cases remain infrequent; few are life-threatening,” he said.

Murthy also adds that vaccinated people tend to overestimate the danger posed by the coronavirus and that unvaccinated people tend to underestimate the risk.

Murthy also said that the situation is particularly dire in areas of the country that have lower vaccination rates and compliance with mask-wearing guidance.

“This is the dichotomy developing,” he said. “It’s almost like living in two different Americas.”

Many hospitals across the US see very few patient turn out due to the reported unavailability of ICU beds. However, several other hospitals are treating nearly twice as many ICU patients as they have room for.

The current seven-day moving average of daily new Covid-19 cases in the US was over 150,000, up 4.9 per cent from the previous week, according to the latest report by the centers for disease control and prevention (CDC).