Can we start to ignore the SARS-CoV-2 disease?

Abstract

ABSTRACTCurrent WHO reports claim a decline in COVID-19 testing. Many countries are reporting no new infections. In particular, USA, China and Japan have registered no cases and COVID-19 related deaths since May 15, 2023. To discuss consequences of ignoring SARS-CoV-2 infection, we compare endemic characteristics of the disease in 2023 with ones estimated before using 2022 datasets. The accumulated numbers of cases and deaths reported to WHO by 10 most infected countries and global figures were used to calculate the average daily numbers of cases and deaths per capita (DCCandDDC) and case fatality rates (CFR) for two periods in 2023. The average values of daily deaths per million still vary between 0.12 and 0.41. It means that annual global number of COVID-19 related deaths is still approximately twice higher than the seasonal influenza mortality. Increase ofCFRvalues in 2023 show that SARS-CoV-2 infection is still dangerous despite of increasing the vaccination level. Very lowCFRfigures in South Korea and very high ones in the UK 4 need further investigations.