Dr. Chris Murray, head of IHME, joined us in episode 117 to discuss his recent provocative piece in The Lancet, ‘Covid-19 will continue but the end of the pandemic is near.’ “The Omicron wave is really different,” extraordinarily fast and much less severe. The current massive Omicron wave will infect 50%-60% of the world by March, creating dramatically enhanced population-level immunity. The unvaccinated and never-infected will become quite scarce, as transmission becomes very low. Aided by the advent of antivirals, “Omicron will become another recurrent infectious disease” that in magnitude is going to be like a bad flu season. Major emergency government interventions will become a thing of the past, even as future variants emerge. Americans will celebrate – almost like a post-war moment -- even as America passes the milestone of one million deaths. Complacency is a risk: some will see this shift as a license to do nothing. “We really have to stick to the truth,” strengthen data and surveillance, improve the health system, and better manage future outbreaks. Another risk: those opposed to vaccines, masks, mandates, social distancing may seize on this transition to advance their cause. “I have not yet received an invite from Tucker… or Joe Rogan.”  China, through its Zero-Covid approach, is hugely vulnerable to Omicron which will eventually break out and threaten to overwhelm China’s health system. In this new phase, attention will turn to other pressing global health concerns, including anti-microbial resistance, the subject of a newly released five-year study of its global burden, led by Dr. Murray.

Dr. Chris Murray is Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations, (IHME), at the University of Washington, where he is also the Chair of the Department of Health Metric Sciences.