#19,005
Six years ago last night - a little before midnight - the dedicated newshounds at FluTrackers began posting reports of a `SARS-like' illness reported in the capital city of Hubei province; Wuhan.Around 2am Sharon Sanders messaged me on Skype, and by 4am I had posted the first of 3 blogs (see China: 27 Cases of `Atypical Viral Pneumonia' Reported In Wuhan, Hubei) I'd write on New Year's Eve day on that event (see also here & here).
Although it would take nearly a week before the WHO and CDC would publicly address the situation, and nearly three weeks (Jan 18th) before China would admit to `limited human-to-human transmission' of the virus, the world had already abruptly, and irrevocable, changed.
We just didn't know it yet.
We'll never truly know how many people have died from COVID - because the world stopped counting early on - but the UN posted the following estimate for just the first 24 months.
New estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that the full death toll associated directly or indirectly with the COVID-19 pandemic (described as “excess mortality”) between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021 was approximately 14.9 million (range 13.3 million to 16.6 million).
While deaths have slowed, they have not stopped. And tens of millions of others have suffered chronic or long-lasting sequelae from infection, ranging from strokes and heart attacks, to `brain fog' and extreme fatigue from `Long COVID'.
Repeated infections have been linked to increased damage, and the risk of developing a chronic post-COVID illness (see Preprint: Incidence of Long COVID Following Reinfection with COVID-19).
Yet for various economic, societal, and political reasons, we have trivialized the virus.Once 90% of the world decided to stop counting (and reporting) deaths and hospitalizations (see 2023's No News Is . . . Now Commonplace), vaccine uptake and the use of masks plummeted.
Today WHO EURO released a statement on the 6th anniversary of the Wuhan revelations, and the need to continue to treat COVID as a legitimate public health threat.
First the press release, after which I'll return with a postscript.
COVID-19 still causes severe disease, but up-to-date vaccines are effective, new research shows
31 December 2025
News release Reading time: 3 min (817 words)
Six years ago, on 31 December 2019, the first reports of cases of pneumonia appeared on the website of the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission in China. Those early cases were the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost 3 and a half years later, in May 2023, after an estimated global death toll of over 6.9 million people, WHO declared the end of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern due to COVID-19.
However, while the pandemic is behind us, COVID-19 is not. Recent research led by WHO/Europe together with partners in 7 Member States shows that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, continues to cause hospitalizations and deaths throughout the WHO European Region. It also confirms that getting an up-to-date COVID-19 vaccine continues to be the most effective way of preventing severe disease from COVID-19.
In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic ended, WHO/Europe has collaborated with partners in ministries of health in countries and areas in the eastern part of the Region to conduct enhanced surveillance for respiratory infections through a regional network of hospitals. This network, named the European Severe Acute Respiratory Infection Vaccine Effectiveness (EuroSAVE) Network, was created in 2021 and currently includes countries and areas in the Balkans, South Caucasus and Central Asia.
Severe disease
The EuroSAVE network study included 6 countries and areas. Out of nearly 4000 patients who were hospitalized for acute respiratory infections between May 2023 and April 2024 – the year after the pandemic was declared over – nearly 10% had COVID-19. The study found that more than two thirds of hospitalized patients were older than 60 and over two thirds had at least one chronic disease – people who the WHO recommends get an annual up-to-date COVID-19 vaccine. However, only 3% of hospitalized patients had received a COVID-19 vaccine within the past 12 months.
The study also found that COVID-19 continued to cause very severe disease: 13% of COVID-19 patients were admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) and 11% of COVID-19 patients died.
Another EuroSAVE study compared patients hospitalized for respiratory infections with COVID-19 to those hospitalized with influenza during a 3-year period (2022–2024). Results showed that throughout the study period, patients hospitalized with COVID-19 were more likely to have severe outcomes – including requiring oxygen, being admitted to the ICU and death – compared to influenza patients.
“Our studies, using data from the EuroSAVE network, highlight that, while COVID-19 is not leading to the widespread disease we saw during the pandemic, it has still been causing a considerable number of hospitalizations and deaths. Moreover, the impact of the virus seems to still be as severe, and sometimes more severe, than influenza,” noted Dr Mark Katz, a medical epidemiologist with the Pandemic Threats, Communicable Diseases and Anti-Microbial Resistance Unit of WHO/Europe.
Up-to-date vaccines
Two additional studies from the EuroSAVE network reaffirmed the effectiveness of an up-to-date COVID-19 vaccine. One study, which analysed 3 years of data from Kosovo*, found that an up-to-date COVID-19 vaccine received in the past 6 months was 72% effective at preventing hospitalization related to COVID-19 and 67% effective in preventing more severe outcomes related to COVID-19, including admission to the ICU and death.
Another study, which included data from the 6 countries and areas that are part of EuroSAVE, found that receiving a COVID-19 vaccine in the previous 6 months prevented 60% of hospitalizations.
In all 4 studies, EuroSAVE surveillance data showed that very few hospitalized patients who were in high-risk groups had actually received an up-to-date COVID-19 vaccine in the previous year. Furthermore, in some of the countries included in the analysis, COVID-19 vaccines were no longer available.
“Our analysis of EuroSAVE surveillance data showed the importance of getting an up-to-date COVID-19 vaccine to prevent severe disease from COVID-19,” said Dr Silvia Bino, Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Control of Infectious Disease at the Institute of Public Health in Albania and a co-author of the multi-country EuroSAVE vaccine effectiveness study.
“We found that most hospitalized patients were older or had chronic diseases. These people are in risk groups that are recommended to get annual COVID-19 shots, but most hadn’t received an up-to-date vaccine.”
Revaccination
In light of the fact that COVID-19 continues to cause morbidity and mortality across the globe, WHO continues to emphasize the importance of revaccination for groups at higher risk of severe disease and death. These include older adults, people with comorbidities, immunocompromized individuals and pregnant persons. Revaccination of health workers is also recommended.
WHO/Europe and ministries of health will continue conducting enhanced surveillance through the EuroSAVE network in order to better understand the burden of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses, evaluate the effectiveness of up-to-date COVID-19 vaccines and answer other urgent public health questions about infections due to respiratory pathogens, old and new.
*All references to Kosovo in this document should be understood to be in the context of the United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
As we discussed a year ago in The Wrong Pandemic Lessons Learned - not only have we developed societal amnesia over the impact of COVID - we seem to be less well prepared today to deal with another global health crisis than we were a decade ago.
Hopefully it will be years before we endure another severe pandemic, but at some point our luck will run out (see BMJ Global: Historical Trends Demonstrate a Pattern of Increasingly Frequent & Severe Zoonotic Spillover Events).Our collective trauma following six years of COVID, the travails of navigating day-to-day life, and inconsistent messaging (and actions) from governments and health authorities, have left society numb, vulnerable, and increasingly apathetic.
While no two pandemics are alike, they all do seem to share one common feature.
You never know you're in one until it's too late to prepare.
