myAIPMWhen will the COVID-19 pandemic end?
Sarun Charumilind, Matt Craven, Jessica Lamb, Adam Sabow, and Matt Wilson | McKinsey
Normalcy by spring, and herd immunity by fall? We assess the prospects for an end in 2021.
In 1920, a world wearied by the First World War and sickened by the 1918 flu pandemic desperately sought to move past the struggles and tragedies and start to rebuild lives. People were in search of a “return to normalcy,” as Warren G. Harding put it. Today, nearly every country finds itself in a similar position.
More than eight months and 900,000 deaths into the COVID-19 pandemic,1 people around the world are longing for an end. In our view, there are two important definitions of “end,” each with a separate timeline:
An epidemiological end point when herd immunity is achieved. One end point will occur when the proportion of society immune to COVID-19 is sufficient to prevent widespread, ongoing transmission. Many countries are hoping that a vaccine will do the bulk of the work needed to achieve herd immunity. When this end point is reached, the public-health-emergency interventions deployed in 2020 will no longer be needed. While regular revaccinations may be needed, perhaps similar to annual flu shots, the threat of widespread transmission will be gone.
A transition to a form of normalcy. A second (and likely, earlier) end point will occur when almost all aspects of social and economic life can resume without fear of ongoing mortality (when a mortality rate is no longer higher than a country’s historical average) or long-term health consequences related to COVID-19. The process will be enabled by tools such as vaccination of the highest-risk populations; rapid, accurate testing; improved therapeutics; and continued strengthening of public-health responses. The next normal won’t look exactly like the old—it might be different in surprising ways, with unexpected contours, and getting there will be gradual—but the transition will enable many familiar scenes, such as air travel, bustling shops, humming factories, full restaurants, and gyms operating at capacity, to resume.
Read more
When will the COVID-19 pandemic end? Sarun Charumilind, Matt Craven, Jessica Lamb, Adam Sabow, and Matt Wilson, McKinsey, 2020