Will COVID end in 2024? Pfizer executives predict the future

The new coronavirus could become an endemic disease by 2024, Pfizer executives said Friday.

Per CNBC, executives with the vaccine developer said that the new coronavirus could become a constant presence in our lives, leading to regional outbreaks each year, much like the flu.

• “We believe Covid will move to an endemic state, potentially by 2024,” Nanette Cocero, global president of Pfizer Vaccines, told CNBC on Friday.

Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s scientific director, said that the future of the virus depends on vaccines and treatment.

• “When and how exactly this happens will depend on the development of the disease, how effectively society uses vaccines and treatments, and fair distribution to places where the vaccination rate is low,”[ads1]; Dolsten told CNBC. “The emergence of new varieties may also affect how the pandemic continues to play out.”

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has a new prediction about the end of the pandemic. She told ABC News that the pandemic will end when the United States sees a huge drop in deaths per day and when hospitals are not packed with COVID-19 patients.

• “We have become quite cavalier around 1100 deaths a day,” she said.
• “There is an extraordinary amount of deaths in a single day from this disease,” Walensky said. “We can not – I can not – be in a position where it’s OK.”

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the pandemic phase of the pandemic will soon end. This was before the omicron variant began to spread around the world, which has changed the way the pandemic goes.

• “I think we’re nearing the end of the pandemic phase of this virus, and we’re going into a more endemic phase, and as things get better, cases may pick up,” Gottlieb said.