Myth or Fact – COVID-19 is over, and variants are no worse than a common cold or the flu.

Resources

You can refer to these sources about how COVID is not over; how hospitalizations and deaths continue to occur around the world; and how the virus can continue to mutate, resulting in new variants that could cause even more severe illness in the future:

• Progress has been made, but almost 1 billion people in low-income countries remain unvaccinated. Variants can emerge where vaccination rates are lowest. We have already seen variants of the virus cause higher levels of illness than the original strain, and new variants have the potential to be as dangerous or worse. Viruses know no borders, and these variants can circulate throughout the world. (Our World in Data, 2022) (WHO, 2022)
• Epidemiologists suspect that the infection rate for COVID-19 is far higher than that of the flu. Compared with an average of 33,400 deaths per year in the U.S. from the flu over the past decade, COVID-19 has caused more than 1 million deaths in the past two years alone. (CDC, 2020) (WHO, 2022)
• Historically, pandemics last for several years. A report reviewing data on the 1889 Russian flu pandemic envisions “possible future scenarios” for COVID-19, since the two pandemics have similar characteristics. The Russian flu was thought to be over, but an additional three-year wave caused significantly more deaths. (Microbial Technology, 2021)