TAMPA, Fla. — On Jan. 20, 2020, the CDC reported its first laboratory-confirmed case of COVID-19.
Then, on March 1, 2020, state officials announced the first two cases in Florida in Hillsborough and Manatee Counties.
It’s been a whirlwind since then with lockdowns, curfews, masks, social distancing, at-home learning, working from home, and so many unknowns.
“We’ve seen in real time a pandemic happen. We don’t often see these things. Once every 100 years or so,” said Dr. Michael Teng, virologist and associate professor at USF Health.
Since 2020, the CDC reports that there have been 1,219,202 deaths in the US caused by the virus.
Within only about 11 months of the first case, we had a vaccine—a major medical achievement.
There have been other huge medical advancements since 2020.
“We’ve been able to make some monoclonal antibodies, we’ve been able to make some anti-viral drugs and they’re really just getting better over time as we make more and more possible treatments,” said Dr. Jill Roberts with the USF College of Public Health.
“The pandemic has shown us some of the best parts of what we can do when we put our minds to it,” said Teng.
We collectively created a rapid response nationwide to get things under control.
“I think it’s also shown some of the worst parts, right? We have fights over everything now,” said Teng. “Now we’re seeing a decrease in vaccination in young children in the childhood vaccines which we all grew up with."
“One of the big things that’s been really tough coming out of the last five years is sort of this decrease in trust in science and public health,” said Roberts.
Understanding why is complex.
“There were mistakes that were made. There were people that came out and said you don’t need to wear a mask, oh wait, now you need to wear a mask. And that was really the science changing over time. But laypeople don’t necessarily see that side of things,” said Roberts.
Officials hope the trust in public health will continue to improve.
As far as the actual COVID-19 virus, it’s still here and evolving.
“We’ve learned quite a bit about the virus over the course of the last five years," said Teng.
There is a small surge right now because we’re in respiratory season.
“Our positivity rates are up, our hospitalizations are slightly up, our deaths are just slightly up, just a little bit. And so what are we seeing there? Well, we have antibodies,” said Roberts.
That means many of the symptoms right now are much milder.
“We’re starting to understand the course of the disease better than we did before, starting to get good data on long COVID, who’s affected,” said Roberts.
The COVID-19 vaccines continue to be seasonal boosters like the flu shot for the time being. Drug manufacturers are hoping to have a flu-COVID combination shot next fall.
They’re also trying to make other vaccine improvements.
“There’s some primary data that states that one of the vaccines may actually prevent infection,” said Roberts.
Some virologists think it’s possible that down the line, we could get rid of the virus altogether and eventually stop vaccinating.
“We’ll see what the virus does because there’s a limited amount of mutation that can happen. It’s kind of pushing the boundaries on where it can go because there’s only 20 amino acids, there’s only a certain amount of flexibility that the virus can have without completely breaking,” said Teng.
Others believe if we stop vaccinating, the virus could mutate and cause severe disease since we won’t have protection.
“It’s anybody’s guess. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Historically, we just don’t have enough data to know what’s going to happen,” said Roberts.
Roberts stresses it’s important to remember we’ve been able to get so far within the past five years because of all the healthcare workers.
