After five COVID surges, and what may be a sixth surge right now, is there any way to tell when the pandemic will be done? Like Yogi Berra said, it isn't over, until it's over.
"I don't know if there's any way to make that call except in retrospect, except after the fact," said Louisiana State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter.
Dr. Kanter says it may be a few months before epidemiologists can look back and realize the pandemic has faded.
"There's not a great road map," the doctor told WWL's Newell Normand. "I mean, this isn't in a textbook."
It is a question that has reportedly flummoxed White House officials, too. According to Politico, one official suggested maybe when the daily COVID deaths nationwide fell below 200 daily, which would be slightly worse than a bad flu season. The report said no consensus was reached.
Dr. Kanter says it may take another year to year-and-a-half of enduring case surges but not hospital surges, but even that's not a sure thing.
"What I mean by that is, we are experiencing a surge right now with a ton of transmission, a ton of virus out there, and not a lot of clinical severity, and so we're just kind of coasting through it and most people are going about their lives relatively unchanged right now," he said. "I don't think I can say that until it's proven to be true for at least more than one surge."
