Chen Ji-Ming
School of Life Science and Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan, China.
J Med Virol. 2022 Jun;94(6):2845-2848. doi: 10.1002/jmv.27661. Epub 2022 Feb 21.
Many people want to know when the COVID-19 pandemic will end and life will return to normal. This question is highly elusive and distinct predictions have been proposed. In this study, the global mortality and case fatality rate of COVID-19 were analyzed using nonlinear regression. The analysis showed that the COVID-19 pandemic could terminate in 2022, but COVID-19 could be one or two times more deadly than seasonal influenza by 2023. The prediction considered the possibility of the emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2 and was supported by the features of the Omicron variant and other facts. As the herd immunity against COVID-19 established through natural infections and mass vaccination is distinct among countries, COVID-19 could be more or less deadly in some countries in the coming years than the prediction. Although the future of COVID-19 will have multiple possibilities, this statistics-based prediction could aid to make proper decisions and establish an example on the prediction of infectious diseases.
许多人想知道新冠疫情何时结束，生活何时恢复正常。这个问题非常难以捉摸，人们已经提出了不同的预测。在本研究中，我们使用非线性回归分析了新冠的全球死亡率和病死率。分析表明，新冠疫情可能在2022年结束，但到2023年，新冠的致死率可能比季节性流感高出一到两倍。该预测考虑了新冠病毒新变种出现的可能性，并得到了奥密克戎变种的特征及其他事实的支持。由于各国通过自然感染和大规模疫苗接种建立的新冠群体免疫情况各不相同，未来几年在某些国家，新冠的致死率可能高于或低于预测。尽管新冠的未来存在多种可能性，但这种基于统计的预测有助于做出正确决策，并为传染病预测树立一个范例。
