Vaccines, treatments, research, protocols: here are the ten reasons for hope while remaining cautious.
Could the year 2022 mark the end of the pandemic? If the epidemic has shown us that we must remain extremely careful and humble regarding any prognosis related to Covid-19, there are many reasons for hope in the fight against the virus. We have pointed out ten reasons that allow us to objectively hope that this new year will be better than the previous one in terms of health, without naively relying on the Omicron variant to solve all the problems.
1. Knowledge of the virus. If the variants continue to develop, and they will continue to mutate, it is indisputable to say that almost two years after the start of this pandemic, the effective measures and protocols to fight against the spread of the Covid are known. Whether they are properly implemented and at the right time by our authorities is another debate. “But this year 2022 will have to be the one where we will take control over the virus, after a year 2021 which has been marked as the year of the vaccine”, says Dirk Devroey, professor of general medicine. For Jean-Michel Dogné, director of the pharmacy department at the University of Namur and member of the vaccination task force, the year 2022 must also be one of humility in the face of the unpredictable nature of the disease. “We must learn from history and not believe that we will solve all the problems with a measure or a new variant. We must not repeat our mistakes as in September 2021 when we lifted almost all the measures. 2022 must therefore be the year of the consolidation of measures, those which must remain and which are not yet used systemically, such as ventilation and wearing a mask. “