And as we’ve discussed many times before, this virus can aerosolize. You know, they have indoor settings in the zoos where the caretakers are in with the animals. You know, these cats will cough and sneeze, they don’t wear masks, and they can easily spread the virus to those people who are feeding the cats or who are within a closed space, especially during the winter when they may be indoors. And it’s possible to pass the virus between the handlers and the people who take care of the animals. And the large cats tend to be very susceptible to the virus. ICT®: What is it with the snow leopards? You told me about a case of snow leopards getting it back in January. I think at this point we need to plan to live with the virus and to adjust the way that we live so that we can do so as safely as possible. This virus unfortunately has also found animal hosts and that’s going to make it even more difficult to eradicate. And this follows a report which we discussed in Infection Control Today® back in August, where the deer from Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York had a positivity rate of around 40% for SARS-CoV-2. And, also, there’s an updated report out of-I believe it was Iowa-where 80% of the whitetail deer were COVID-19 positive. Just last week, there was report of three snow leopard deaths at the in Lincoln, Nebraska. And you can get virus spread from people to animals, and also the reverse. And of course, as we’ve discussed before, you’ve got the problem of the virus being in animals and animal hosts. And that is I think posing a huge problem. One is just because 90% of a country is vaccinated doesn’t mean that virus won’t spread and won’t have outbreaks, because we have whole segments of our society which are anti-vaccine. And this is indeed one of the big problems that I think that we have. But in those groups and in those meetings and gatherings, you don’t have any herd immunity. Those who are not vaccinated, tend to clump or gather together in their own social groups, which I like to sometimes call death cults because they go around spreading disinformation regarding vaccines. And whether or not you can get herd immunity, and you talk about numbers of vaccinations within the community, you need to realize that, to a large extent, it’s not homogenous on how people are distributed who are vaccinated and not. The other factor is when we talk about people who are infected with COVID-19. And that’s allowed the COVID-19 virus to reemerge as immunity has waned. And unfortunately, they have not been very efficient at rolling out boosters. Things: one is that these were some of the countries to first get the vaccine and to get their populations vaccinated. For example, Iceland-also, Ireland and Gibraltar-where over 90% of the adults are vaccinated. If you look at some of the countries in Europe, some of these countries are highly vaccinated. But at least for right now, it is of utmost importance that people get boosters. Now boosters may actually be just a third course of the vaccine, and it may be part of the normal vaccine course that we’ll have in the future. And one of those is this, we need to get a booster shot.
Kevin Kavanagh, MD: Well, I think this virus is entering into a phase of becoming endemic. And you’ve written many articles about the importance of booster shots. You’ve written about a recent smallpox scare. Infection Control Today ®: I’m going to ask you to gaze into your crystal ball again, Doctor Kavanagh. But long term, this may be a real problem and a real toll to our society.”
“When you look at it short term, it doesn’t seem like it’s doing much. For these problems, Kavanagh uses the compound interest analogy in banking.
That means that the virus has innumerable hosts in which it can thrive and mutate, possibly into an iteration that can shake off the antibodies created by prior infection or vaccines in humans. There’s also the matter of animal infection.
Long COVID, mild illness can cause devastations to our society.” These could come back to haunt society and overburden the health care system in the decades to come. Kavanagh points out that “death is a pretty low bar for public health. Yes, the COVID-19 vaccines should ensure-as we face a fifth wave of COVID-19-that not nearly as many people will die from the disease as did this time during last year’s holiday surge. Kevin Kavanagh, MD, agrees that COVID-19 is endemic (he said as much back in January), but warns that it’s still much more problematic than the cold or flu. By now, many medical experts expect that humans will deal with COVID-19 the way we deal with other seasonal maladies such as the cold or influenza. By now, almost all medical experts agree that COVID-19 is here to stay.