We have learned that after a year of the corona pandemic

– Never underestimate what a new virus can do, things you’ve never seen before.

That was the response of the director of infection control of the United States, Anthony Fauci, when asked about the most important lessons of the corona pandemic, at the February annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, AAAS. .

– We really underestimate the complexity of the virus and how it could behave, he continued.

ThursdayMarch 11, marks one year since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the spread of the new coronavirus sars-cov2 had become a pandemic. On the same day, the first death was reported in Sweden. Since then, nearly 13,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Sweden. Worldwide, the disease has killed more than 2.5 million people.

And the virus has continued to surprise us. From the beginning, the disease appeared to be a pneumonia that mainly affects the elderly. We now know that sars-cov2 can cause many different and variable symptoms. In some they are very mild or completely absent, while others become so seriously ill that they need intensive care and may die. Also, there are long-term problems that can continue for months. While sister disease sars almost always causes severe symptoms and is most contagious when the disease is at its worst, COVID-19 can be transmitted even before symptoms appear. Therefore, measures such as testing, physical distance, hand hygiene, quarantine, and isolation became crucial in trying to control the infection.

The pandemic has shed light on something that those of us dealing with viruses have known for a long time: that viral diseases are important and perhaps underestimated when it comes to risks to the world and to human health. That you are now investing money in research is good. But it would have been even better if he had had that information earlier, says Jan Albert, professor of infection control and leader of the covid-19 group at the Karolinska Institutet.

Researchers from many different fields He quickly turned around and we began researching the new virus, as we urgently needed to know how to manage, treat, and prevent the disease and its consequences for entire individuals and communities. It is estimated that in 2020 more than 200,000 scientific studies on the coronavirus were published.

– We have learned how quickly knowledge can be generated and how much faster it is today than ever, says Anna Mia Ekström, professor of epidemiology of global infections at the Karolinska Institutet.

– It has been a fantastic international meeting around this. For example, we already have vaccines that are used. People ask why we don’t have more vaccines or why aren’t more people getting vaccinated. But the fact that we already have a vaccine is absolutely fantastic, says Jan Albert.

But also has made mistakes.

– Many of us probably thought a little too optimistic that this would end quite quickly. But that did not happen. Pandemics last for a time, several seasons. If you look at flu pandemics from the Spanish flu onwards, they have been in waves for a couple of years and then it has turned into seasonal flu. This is something we can look forward to here as well. It takes time and a long-term perspective is needed in efforts and preparation, says Jan Albert.

– We still know very little about what measures in society would have been wiser in the long run. We are beginning to see the downsides of decisions that were made in panic, because they were imitating other countries and didn’t really know what to do, says Anna Mia Ekström.

It’s completely understandable that this happened, he says.

– Of course, we had to take steps to try to prevent serious illness and death. But it was a mistake to think that one size fits all, and that countries should close regardless of risk or disease burden or risk groups, and remain closed during that time. Most countries are beginning to realize that the closure of schools was a huge mistake that had very negative consequences for children and young people.

If more people had understood how long the pandemic would last, the measures would likely have looked different.

– I think it was thought that we could take such drastic measures because everyone else is doing it and it is something of a short duration that will soon be over. I wish countries, by introducing measures to reduce the spread of the infection, had invested in maintaining basic, preventive and vital medical care, and emphasized more the importance of continuing to vaccinate their children, or seeking care even for symptoms that may indicate other serious diseases. For this not to have been done, we will have to pay a heavy price in the future. In low-income countries, for example, lack of treatment for malaria and other common infectious diseases has already cost many children their lives, says Anna Mia Ekström.

Anna Mia Ekström has studied the indirect effects of measures and closures, especially in low-income countries in Africa.

– We received early reports of an increase in sexual abuse, rape and teenage pregnancy. From West Africa, it was reported that in some cases women were refused to give birth in a clinic if they did not have mouth guards, with a high risk to mother and child. Above all, we see a very great concern that people do not dare to take their children to medical care or to vaccinate them, despite the fact that the risk of becoming seriously ill in covid-19 for young people is very small, he says .

The pandemic has also revealed shortcomings in the world’s richest countries.

– It is quite obvious that both we in Sweden and most of the other countries and societies were ill-prepared for these kinds of events to come. This applies to research and science, and at least as much to the preparation of society in all other aspects, as to the way in which medical care is organized, especially when the care of the elderly is highly fragmented and lacks clear leadership, says Jan Albert.

Weaknesses have been revealed at the local, regional, national and international levels. Hope we can learn from this to make it work better in the future. Even within the EU, cooperation was initially broken when countries hoarded protective gear and respirators. We need better systems that prevent such perhaps human but not very constructive behaviors, says Anna Mia Ekström.

If we did a year If we had known what we know today, we could have been better prepared, react more quickly, and introduce more long-term sustainable measures, so that, for example, schooling and education and other parts of health care did not suffer.

– I think it is important to learn for the future instead of looking for scapegoats, says Jan Albert.

At the AAAS conference, Anthony Fauci had another important lesson to learn from the pandemic and try to deal with it in a polarized political climate.

– To combat a threat to public health, we must do it when society is united, so that we can all agree on what to do.