As COVID numbers fall and mandates lift, the question remains: Is it possible to avoid trade-offs between returning to pre-pandemic lifestyles and an uptick in COVID-19-related deaths?
Scientists from Harvard and elsewhere conducted a simulation study that projected the future of the COVID-19 pandemic in every state.
The team assumes the current pace of vaccination is maintained into the future and models different dates for lifting mandates.
In most states, relaxing masking mandates and other restrictions resulted in some “rebound” in COVID-19-related deaths; however, delaying the date of lifting mandates did little to lessen the eventual rise in deaths.
The research is published in JAMA Health Forum and was conducted by Benjamin P. Linas et al.
One of the strongest predictors of the extent of the rebound surge in mortality after relaxing mandates was the degree of immunity in the community at the time of lifting the mandate.
Therefore, communities with a high percentage of residents who are vaccinated and/or who have had COVID-19 are likely to have lower death rates.
The team found while there is ample evidence in our analysis that a March 2022 lifting date leads to rebound mortality in many states, the simulation also suggests that with the Omicron variant, whenever states do remove mandates will face the same difficult choice between increased COVID-19 mortality and the freedoms of returning to a pre-pandemic norm.
The one intervention that can mitigate this impossible choice is ongoing COVID-19 vaccination with boosters.
Even though a delay in lifting mask mandates or restrictions on social gatherings will likely not entirely prevent future surges in COVID-19-related deaths, the findings could potentially aid state public health officials as they weigh different options.
The researchers note that the highly transmissible Delta and Omicron variants will likely continue to take a major toll across the country, but if a less transmissible viral strain were to become dominant, rebounding morbidity and mortality rates would be substantially lower.
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