On January 11, 2020, authorities in China announced the first death from an unknown coronavirus. Five years after the pandemic caused by the coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (Sars- CoV2) began, covid-19 has ceased to disrupt the planet, but it is not yet a thing of the past as it still causes infections – often persistent – and deaths.

So far, covid-19 has officially infected 777 million people and caused the deaths of more than 7 million, though in reality the number is estimated to be higher, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

But with the passage of time and various waves of the disease, the impact of covid-19 on deaths and hospitalizations has been significantly reduced, thanks to the immunity that the population has acquired through vaccinations and/or infections.

COVID-19 is still killing (more than 3,000 deaths were recorded from October to November 2024 in 27 countries, according to WHO), but the vast majority of deaths due to the disease were recorded from 2020 to 2022.

The pandemic is thought to have ended in the spring of 2023 when the WHO lifted the highest level of alert it had declared.

The virus has not been eradicated, but it appears to have gradually become endemic, with regular waves of outbreaks, such as influenza, various experts have noted.

Yet “people want to forget that this virus is still with us, people want to put the COVID in the past — and in various ways pretend that nothing happened — because the whole experience has been traumatic,” observed Dr. Maria Van Kerhove in mid-December, the WHO’s epidemic and pandemic preparedness officer Dr. Maria Van Kerhove.

The Omicron variant season began in the fall of 2021 and continues: one substrain of the coronavirus replaces the other without causing more severe symptoms.

However, the scenario of new strains of the virus that are more contagious or bypass human immunity should not be completely ruled out, some scientists believe.

In any case, Sars-CoV2 will remain among us.

Critical to the response to the pandemic was vaccination, which was carried out at an intensive pace. More than 13.6 billion doses of vaccines were administered worldwide, although access to them was very unequal between rich and poor countries.

Experts still recommend vaccines that have been modified to treat the Omicron variant, especially for the most vulnerable, because they continue to protect against severe forms of the disease and the risk of long-term COVID-19.

In terms of treatment, it remains the same after Omicron emerged: some antiviral drugs and monoclonal antibodies.

Some innovations brought or accelerated by the pandemic, notably mRNA vaccines, have raised hopes for treating other diseases, such as cancer.

Fatigue, coughing, shortness of breath, intermittent fever, loss of taste or smell, difficulty concentrating, depression… those affected by long-term covid experience one or more of these symptoms, generally for three months after infection, which persist for at least two months and are not explained by any other pathology.

About 6% of those infected with COVID-19 are affected by this syndrome, the WHO noted in late December, stressing that it continues to “burden health systems.”

Women and those with underlying diseases are most affected by long COVID, and reinfections appear to increase the risk of developing it.

Covid-19 will not be the last pandemic, scientists are confident of that. The question is to find out when the next one will appear and whether people will be prepared for it.

About 60% to 70% of new diseases are zoonotic, meaning they come from an animal. The risk of infection from them is heightened by deforestation, which increases people’s contact with wild animals, which may carry unknown viruses.

The era of COVID has also fostered both contempt for vaccines and misinformation. Tellingly, newly elected US President Donald Trump wants to appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a known anti-vaccine activist, as Secretary of Health and Human Services.