It’s been two years since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID outbreak a pandemic, and since then, people around the world have been asking the same thing: when will it end? This seems like a simple question, but historical analysis shows that “the end” of a disease is rarely experienced in unison by everyone affected.

For some, the threat is over quickly and a return to normality is eagerly anticipated. But for others, the continued threat from infection – as well as the long-term health, economic and social impacts of the disease – render official announcements of the end premature. This could, for example, include immunocompromised people, some of whom remain vulnerable to COVID despite being vaccinated.

Determining when a disease outbreak has ended is even difficult for global health agencies. The Ebola outbreak that began in 2018 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was declared over by the WHO in 2020, but subsequently flared up again. This revival was then re-declared over in December 2021.

In England, the government recently decided to lift all remaining COVID legal restrictions. But does this push towards “living with” the virus mean that England’s pandemic is over? And if not, who should decide when it is?

In the 24 hours following the announcement ending COVID restrictions, we conducted a survey to explore whether people in England believed the pandemic was over. We also explored whether they believed it was legitimate to end all COVID restrictions at this point in time, and who they believed should be able to decide when the pandemic is over.

In total, we surveyed just over 1,300 people. We recruited 500 participants who were representative of the population through the surveying company Prolific, while the remaining 800 were recruited via social media and university mailing lists. Blending these two methods meant that, while our sample wasn’t wholly representative of the public, it was diverse.

Read full story at The Conversation:
https://theconversation.com/who-gets-to-decide-when-the-pandemic-is-over-177971

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