Very informative article but why the past tense?

Dear Editor,

In an otherwise very informative article Islam and Djanov’s use of the past tense to refer the pandemic in the opening sentence is unfortunate. The words “took” and “was”, place the pandemic in the past, and buy into the narrative that the pandemic is all over. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite the disappearance of the ONS survey and the scaling back of testing, its is clear we continue to have a high baseline prevalence rate of around 1 million people currently infected (1), with about a third of infections being reinfections. (2) The pattern of this high baseline of infections with waves occurring due to new variants, as a result of unmitigated transmission, seems likely to continue; we had 5 waves of various Omicron variants last year. The “area under the curve” is enormous, and it is estimated we will all be infected about twice a year, perhaps more, as new variants continue to become more immune evasive. (3) In one recent study in France a quarter of people were re-infected within 90 days. (4)

Infections matter; the WHO announced recently that about 1 in 10 infections (infections that is, not people) develop symptoms of long Covid and hundreds of millions of people could be disabled by the virus (5). Emerging evidence also indicates that repeated infections cause additional risk of death, hospitalisation and sequelae including pulmonary, cardiovascular, haematological, diabetes, gastrointestinal, kidney, mental health, musculoskeletal and neurological disorders. The risks were evident regardless of vaccination status. (6)

If we are to have any chance of tackling this pandemic in a rational way, and prepare for future pandemics so they do not devastate the globe like SARS-CoV-2, we need to acknowledge the reality of where we are and the task before us.

References
1. https://health-study.joinzoe.com/data#levels-over-time
2. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=nation&areaName=E…
3. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/data-show-omicron-common-cause-covid…
4. https://twitter.com/Saffiya_Khan1/status/1651568645007450112
5. https://twitter.com/Saffiya_Khan1/status/1651568645007450112
6. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3