Are We Any Closer to the End of the Pandemic?

Dr. Marvin Manzanero

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Doctor Marvin Manzanero was government’s chief medical advisor in his then capacity as Director of Health Services.  Notwithstanding the controversial changes in the Ministry of Health and Wellness since the Briceño administration took over in November 2020, Doctor Manza, as most refer to him, has been closely following the evolution of the novel corona virus.  With the rapid spread of the Omicron variant late last year, many in the medical community, including doctors and scientists, are of the belief that this may very well signal the end of the pandemic.  But the former D.H.S. seems to have a different view. This morning, during an appearance on Open Your Eyes, Doctor Manza shared his opinion.

Dr. Marvin Manzanero

“Just because you’re having so many cases and your vaccination rates are not high, across the globe it’s what drives the statement now to indicate that this is not the end because it is anticipated that the virus will continue to evolve.  So any new variant that comes along will have to be more contagious or infectious than Omicron because in order for it to take any viability, for it to continue to spread on, it will have to be much more infectious than Omicron or else Omicron, you see like when you had the Delta variant that seemed to spread much more quickly than the previous variants that were there.  Omicron came along and it’s much more infectious and much more contagious than the Delta variant, so whatever other variant that comes around would have to be much more infectious and that’s the reason why you can’t speak of a pandemic that it is end is in sight.  The two things that can potentially happen with a new strain and which you hope doesn’t happen and it’s not much more deadly than Omicron is, and that it doesn’t evade whatever successes that have been had with the vaccines that are currently in circulation.  So you can anticipate that you’re going to have a much more infectious strain, you are going to hope, we are going to hope that it is not more deadly and that it isn’t evading vaccines that are in circulation.”