When will COVID-19 end by?

Hello

I would like to see you guys predict when will COVID-19 end?

P.S I want the coronavirus to end as soon as possible so no more delays and production shortages in general.

Hopeful answer: June. Probable answer: next year.

unfortunately its like asking when will Flu end, it won't it will just tail off and become a yearly thing

viruses don't really end, boss. if you're asking when some of the more overt measures end- no one knows as it's dependent on both governmental and individual action. if you're fortunate enough to live in a country with robust vaccination- hopefully things feel better after the summer.

if your primary concern is the consumer supply chain- that's even more complicated as you have all the issues of the health problem, further complicated by market/economic and labor forces.

I agree with you.

probably this

It is still unclear if the mutations being observed in covid will render The Vaccine ineffective but, regardless, we should already be preparing for The Next Pandemic as it were (John Oliver did a wonderfully depressing piece on this)

So, REALLY optimistic: Late Summer we'll see some countries re-open due to having vaccinated the majority of adults and not giving a shit about children. Whether that means we'll go maskless or not will probably depend on the local government...

Realistically: We'll reach a "new normal" early next Spring as a significant percentage of the world will have been vaccinated and some general precautions will be agreed upon. It will be "enough" for covid but not for whatever comes next.

Depressing: Never because we'll already be rushing head long into the next pandemic and people will continue to refuse to do even the most basic of things to make everyone's lives better.

@mellotronrules: Viruses don't end? Tell that to poor Smallpox, once the scourge of humanity and now just a vial in a few highly guarded labs.

But yes, viruses like COVID-19 are virtually impossible to eradicate. It may become just another illness that's mostly under control like Measles is right now, but it will probably never go away, and populations that refuse to vaccinate for whatever reason will continue to have outbreaks for a very long time.

However the current pandemic likely will end.

Viruses are a feedback mechanism the Earth uses to keep humans in check, preventing them them from fucking the planet up.

Yes, I'm serious.

@berfunkle: The earth has no consciousness or intent. Neither do viruses.

If viruses are about humans then why does Koala Retrovirus exist, and devastate their populations?

Viruses have wiped out non-human species. Your view is very anthropocentric. Viruses just exist, same as everything else.

I wouldn't count on it being over before the end of 2022. Maybe later.

In any case, it won't simply be an "ok thanks it's over" sort of thing. It will be a gradual thing. And I don't think it will be a "return to 2019 normalcy" thing, either, I think masks will be a more common thing around the world. Social gatherings will pick back up at some point, though, that's just human nature. Work from home will be more common, remote meetings occurring more often, other things of that nature.

well sure- i was being pedantic. there are of course viruses that are made to not exist through intervention- but i think it's fairly safe to presume that humanity's success in that regard is anomalous.

@mellotronrules: Anomalous AND undone by idiots

Remember polio? We had that shit under control until a bunch of fucking idiots decided to become anti-science.

@mellotronrules said:

This is especially true given the climate around vaccines that has inexplicably been allowed to fester in certain countries. As I recall, vaccines were fairly important in ending Smallpox.

Hello, please don't treat the virus like a machine that only hurts game development. Let's treat it as something that has, is currently, and will continue to kill people. And let's not belittle the serious nature of preventing future outbreaks either.

If ya'll can't stay on topic or want to use this thread as your personal sounding board on viral theories, just don't. Or the thread will be locked.

Wear a mask, get the vaccine when you can.

To give what I think when the virus will end in and of itself, I do not think it will ever end. Unless we were able to successfully eliminate it from the world.

Think shots like, flu shots, if the virus mutates in a similar fashion to flu. It may not be yearly, but matching whatever rates of variance Covid-19 occurs that requires a new vaccine.

It's a new pain in the world, but hopefully becomes manageable, as does seem to be happening.

Not a clue. I suspect the restrictions will be done by late summer but the virus will carry on. It's just too rife in places like Brazil. Comparing it to smallpox is weird because that was a scourge for centuries and killed incredibly well.

Getting the vaccine out as quick as we have has certainly expedited things and it offer people some protection at a rate far quicker than just exposing yourself to the virus ever could. Lets be honest, this is the first time any of us have ever seen a vaccine effect in action.

It’s not going to end. The pandemic will end, but we’ll probably being SAR2 shots for the indefinitely

When will we see the spread of the virus slow down and numbers dramatically reduce? Probably once vaccination becomes much more widespread. The timeframe for that varies from country to country and region to region. Hopefully later in the year but there's too many variables to know for sure. I doubt at this point we will ever see the end of the virus completely given how widespread it is and the likelihood of more mutations happening. It'll probably become another flu-like situation in that regard where yearly vaccines are necessary.

When will things return to something resembling normal (live events return, restrictions disappear, etc.)? That's impossible to say, but probably a longer time than a lot of folks think (hearing about folks in the UK booking international vacations a few months from now after they announced that June reopening date was uh... yeah. Good luck with that). Most professional musicians I follow for instance have basically written the rest of this year off entirely in terms of performing in-person concerts. I've heard of some rumblings of conferences and business-related gatherings attempting to return later in the year but a lot of that has been met with skepticism since even planning any of that gambles on restrictions being eased in a way that is not guaranteed to happen anytime soon.

So yeah, it's impossible to say.

Given how things are going with vaccinations, the end is clearly not in sight yet. Even if everything works out in one country, tourists will return everything back.

It probably won't "end" for a vary long time. I don't know if everything will ever be truly normal again, but my guess is that we will be near a normal level of economic and personal activity by the end of the year. I think enough will be vaccinated that deaths and infections are way down.

There are plenty of potential roadblocks. A big one is virus mutations. It mutates rapidly, and we don't know what that will look like down the road. A hope is that it mutates in such a way that getting infected is less dangerous. Also there's the continuing problem of people throwing hissy fits over something as simple and inoffensive as wearing a mask or crowing people, and that behaviour being backed by half our political establishment. They make this much much worse than it needed to be both in terms of human costs and economic harm. If enough people get vaccinated, it could mitigate that people problem and make getting back to normalish be easier to accomplish.

Basically, a lot still relies on numerous unknown variables driven by how the virus ends up behaving, and how many people are able to do the most basic neccesary things to protect their fellow human beings. Have to pay close attention to what the data is telling us.

I also see that the current state of things can't go on for multiple years, and I think as the year goes on, the effort of U.S. citizens to force us to return to normal will ramp up no matter what the cost in lives and organ damage. We have serious problems in how our economy works (and how people think of the economy) which make it a major battle to provide for our people, despite our nation's vast resources.

There's also the question of minorities and how they're affected. They get hit hardest on both the economic and human costs.

Anyway, I don't think anyone really knows how this will all end up. We just have to not be selfish irrational assholes, listen to the data, and push our government to do what it needs to do to slow down the massive death toll.

Here in Tennessee things are for the most part back to normal. Tourism is starting to pick up, vaccines are available to everyone over the age of 16. The only difference is most store still require masks, but that is optional. Now people getting vaccines is a whole other matter. Sadly things are so backwards and people are just; well people, things likely will just not get back to normal for a very long time til people wake the fuck up and chill out. I'll be getting my 2nd vaccine shot at the end of the month, so after that I really don't care what people are going to do. I am just so done being worried about other peoples made up beliefs that I just frankly don't give a shit. I am just done and tired of dealing with other people mistakes.

Based on my understanding of viruses, vaccines, immune systems etc, never.

This is going to be a seasonal thing at the very least, and ongoing pandemic at the worst. Mostly because of people's ignorance/arrogance.

Now, I'm not saying this means people are gonna be couped up in their homes for all of eternity. But booster shots will at least be a thing, unless the vaccines are refactored in the future. And masks will be a thing for a while at least for at risk individuals, who the vaccine either has very little or no actual benefit just with how their immune response works. But of course some people won't wear masks and many more won't take vaccines, which causes more transmission and more mutations, hence the seasonal issue. How bad those seasons will be year to year is anyone's guess.

And don't bet on future vaccines being distributed as graciously, bet there will be a decent price tag down the line, which means even fewer people will be vaccinated despite their desire to.

Hate to be a downer, but just with how society has evolved and how pretentious humans have become, this is a product of our own making and it's not going away any time soon.

Now that said, don't worry about it. You can't control what other people do/think and never will. People have made up their minds about how they will react to this ongoing situation.

Being at risk, not knowing how the vaccine even affects me if at all, and still not even being able to get it until very recently(lumped in with "everyone over 16" despite my condition and being 29), and the aboslute crapshoot of odds on if someone I come into contact with is vaccinated or has been taking appropriate precautions, I've basically accepted that I will not be able to attend concerts, amusement parks, movie theaters, really any sort of large public gathering for the foreseeable future. So with everything said, just do what you can to take care of yourself and the ones you care about, both mentally and physically.

Given the lack of immunologists/epidemiologists likely to be present on a forum such as this I'm not sure you're going to get much insight into the issue.

@kunakai: I don't think we will get much insight on a videogame newsboard but.... looking at the news it seems this pandemic has had different impacts in different styles of government ... I think the world might divide a bit which it is already. Some countries have handled the pandemic well, tightly knit countries, rule abiding countries, Western counties however...have not handled it well. Just hope these vaccines work..I live in a Western country,

Hopefully by the end of the year but we may have to find ways to live with it. But there will be enough vaccine in all over the world in few years time to stop it to be a deadly disease.

We'll start seeing the end of it in the west around september-december. Then, as billions more are unvaccinated we'll see mutations crop up that are actually not affected by the vaccine. At which point we're going to be fucked again.

For it to "end", the world must be vaccinated. Until then, more and more mutations will emerge. It is very likely that some of them will not be knocked out by the vaccine. If this happens, any prediction is pointless.

Will it happen? There's a higher than zero percent chance. Have we as humans been on a streak of good luck lately? Nah. Will the poor parts of the world be vaccinated by the end of 2021? No. End of 2022? No sir. Money and the will to spend it on poor people will run dry before half the planet is vaccinated.

We'll continue sleeping in the bed we shat in.

yes, I agree, there is a high probability that this will be the case

Mainly it’s the US that will have it handled by year’s end just so long as most people get their shot. As for globally COVID will be around for a good chunk of this coming decade while rich countries should have it contained by the middle to end of next year

And the people comparing it to the flu are spot on. These vaccines will just be a different form of “flu shot” we all will have to count with each passing year.

I think it’ll be mostly handled by the end of the year or early 2022 in developed countries.

That said I think the ramifications will be longer lasting — i.e. I imagine it’ll be another shot you get yearly like the flu shot.

Feel free to fact check, but I vaguely remember a TYT story on Dr. Fauci's prediction of around 80% of people [in the US] being vaccinated by the fall, so that's my prediction on when things will relatively return to normal. ...provided that people get their shit together.

Don't forget that viral RNA has had a pretty big hand in the development of all multicellular life on Earth. There's a pretty good chance that mutations brought from the transposition of viral genetic material was responsible for the development of the placenta, and therefore, mammals. Just wanted to say.

But yeah, "normal" isn't coming back anytime soon. It's probably going to be a generation before it's like it was before.

From everything I'm hearing, an 'end' is relative. Covid-19 isn't going anywhere. Likely, the vaccine will become an annual thing for all of us, akin to a flu shot but much more serious (but less so for subsequent generations). In terms of the ending of the restrictions, for the US I doubt it'll be within this year at least. Some things will probably never go back to how they were. I bet a lot more people will work from home. I'd hope it will normalize wearing a mask when you are sick. The effects on media will likely be for years and years to come yet because schedules are all off. The ripple effects of all this will likely last a very long time.

hey, hi, wow glad I can be a resident public health video game guy.

As others have noted there ain’t really an “end” to COVID-19, but there will likely be an end to this pandemic and we’ll have spread at a smaller scale. It’s incredibly difficult to eradicate diseases which is why smallpox is the only one we’ve ever managed to do that with. The next disease on the short list to eradicate isn’t even COVID-19, it’s Dracunculiasis aka guinea worm disease. We have a really good shot at being successful with this one because it’s only spread through drinking contaminated water, not person-to-person like COVID-19 (although we are part of the life cycle of the parasite that causes Dracunculiasis).

Diseases with a human reservoir like COVID-19 are obviously hard to contain because we interact A LOT and at a global scale. COVID-19 is likely to be with us indefinitely much like other related coronaviruses.

But here’s the good news, like with other diseases we get vaccinated for the goal is protecting as many people as possible. Once we reach the magic ratio of herd immunity that we’ve all been hearing so much about, it doesn’t mean it’s gone forever but it does mean that we have enough vaccinated people to effectively protect those unvaccinated. And when we inevitably have people get sick it’s naturally contained to smaller areas. That makes it a lot easier to treat folks too.

Another expectation of mine that we haven’t addressed is more effective treatments (or a cure if you prefer that term). Those are still being researched but are reason for some optimism that we have ways of combatting this thing in the future.

As hard as it seems, I would encourage folks to focus on trends and (hopefully) shrinking numbers of cases instead of a definitive end.

are you guys thinking that It will be ended soon then I don't think so It will now same as the Polio.in Some countries the Polio Disease still present so like this Covid-19 also remain in Under rated countries, or un develop countries.

Vaccines help wipe out viruses, people who reject vaccines cause of their theories will keep the virus going

I don't think it will end for a very long time. I full expect to have a yearly covid booster shot every year like i do every autumn for the Flu. If we're able to get somewhat back to normalcy that will be absolutely worth it in my eyes.

It's a matter of where you live, I guess. Pretty wild to see people in NYC still walking around with masks outside and then watch a Phoenix Suns game where the stadium is packed and very few have masks on. Haven't been following the numbers but I assume cases are low there (but I also heard that of NYC where vaccinations are aplenty).

I'm trying to travel US this summer to find new city to settle down and it's weird to plan this stuff. Just seeing now all these stories of airlines shutting down because they don't have staff to meet sudden travel demands so hundreds of flights are being canceled until August. Lots of weird knock-on effects. But health is most important thing and it seems like things are looking up across the US.

End?

If you’re thinking I purely in terms of shortages ending (consoles, chips, etc.) next spring is the rosiest outlook. As someone who works in supply chain and logistics I’m hearing from Asia- based vendors that they don’t expect to have all of their parts shortages under control until after Chinese New Year. Which is in February.

It'll probably last until Christmas, since more people are getting vaccinated and such.

IT will never really end. IT will get managed much better and people will die less. But there will be surges every year just like the flu. Shortages will very likely persist into well over year past production getting back to fill speed. So a long time yet.

Yep. We can't eliminate this and can't start and stop society at large. The world is simply too big. The vaccines are looking effective but spread will always open up the potential for variants.

This will take years to truly, truly settle down.

Coronaviruses are usually a common thing that typically cause a common cold. Not Covid-19 since it was novel and no one had gained exposure to this strain yet. My hope is that we will put this all behind us by the end of the year as people get vaccinated or gain natural antibodies. It has been shown to be mild in the vast majority of adolescent cases so soon it should be a cold someone gets as a child.

Either that or watch out for Covid-22. wash your hand everyone.

I think it will take a decade or two, before we functionally eradicate it.

It will be like Polio where it is world-wide effort to get vaccination to everyone. And before people say Covid is different because of the variants. Nope there are dozens variants of Polio too. Poliomyelitis is broken into three main groups for study, but there are many variants that are tracked. There are still cases of people getting Polio from vaccines and from wild strains even today. When we say we have Eradicated Polio, we mean we have lowered the incidence rate to very small fraction, not that nobody gets it.

I think, the World Health Organization (WHO) will attack Covid-19 and it variants like they did with Polio because it does kill a lot of people even if it like 2% of those who get it. I think the long lasting side issues to lungs, heart and brain is why the WHO will attempt to eradicate it. And, if you ask why not HIV or something else? Well many western nations are trying to eradicate HIV too.

Maybe I'm just ignorant because I don't follow the news but what's so bad about being vaccinated and getting Covid? I've known several vaccinated people who got Covid and got over it in a couple days. It's just like getting the flu or whatever. Very dangerous for those unvaccinated but otherwise why are we still in a state of panic over this? I feel so lost in these discussions and can't trust the media until they are honest about numbers, dividing them between vaccinate and non-vaccinated.

@berfunkle:

Can you hear the cries of the planet?

-Bugenhagen

Vaccines reduce the risk of serious illness, hospitalizations and death considerably. So if you are young and in top health - vaccines make the risk of covid very low. If you are older and/or have a pre-existing condition it can still be very dangerous because your risk was so high to begin with, the vax does not negate all of that risk. Flu still kills an awful lot of vaccinated elderly each year.

Also there are people who medically cannot be vaccinated - the immunosuppressed for example. Not to mention poorer countries who just cant get hold of vaccines.

As for the breakdown in figures you asked for - they are available if you look for them.