The COVID emergency might end after 3 long years — but the virus is still a threat

Dr. Allison McGeer spent the first few days of 2020 hoping she was wrong.

A microbiologist in Toronto, who famously survived a SARS infection in 2003, McGeer knew the strange, unexplained pneumonia spreading in China could explode into something much, much worse.

She said as much during a provincial meeting during the last week of January that year. "This is going to be awful," she recalled telling officials. "And in particular, long-term care is going to be catastrophic."

Soon after, her son asked how long the crisis would last. McGeer's grim prediction: 18 months. 

"And even that was a pretty substantial underestimate," she told CBC News recently.

It's now been more than three years since SARS-CoV-2 began its march around the world, first as a virus totally foreign to humans, and later as an evolving pathogen capable of sneaking past our sharpened immune systems, infecting even those who've built up immunity from prior infections or vaccinations.

On Friday, a World Health Organization (WHO) committee is set to meet to consider whether the COVID-19 pandemic still represents a global public health emergency.

Multiple experts who spoke to CBC News said that regardless of what WHO decides in the days ahead, COVID will remain a threat to our collective health for years to come — for a slate of different reasons — even as governments and the public move on.

"I know this is what happens at the end of pandemics," McGeer said, "but watching it in real time is a bit depressing."

There are reasons to be hopeful about the trajectory of the COVID pandemic, even though this virus has claimed millions of lives.

By now, a majority of Canadians are vaccinated, which largely protects against serious illness. Drugs like Paxlovid are available for higher-risk groups, and critical care physicians have learned how to better treat those who do fall seriously ill.

As of mid-2022, vaccinated and boosted Canadians were three times less likely to be hospitalized — and five times less likely to die — than people who hadn't gotten a single shot, federal figures show. 

Data from a B.C. research team also suggests SARS-CoV-2 has infected most of the population at least once, offering many people a blend of protective immunity through both viral exposure and vaccines. But most doesn't mean everyone, McGeer stressed.

COVID still killed hundreds of Canadians each week throughout much of the last year, and even now, the virus keeps finding new victims with grim regularity, she said, including isolated seniors and other high-risk individuals who managed to avoid the virus while taking precautions.