Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to become endemic and come back with increased virulence. This paper outlines potential public health interventions, such as hygiene practices, social isolation, and face masks, as well as realistic future advancements. It focuses on the negative public health effects of lockdowns, the role of natural changes like weather, testing for surveillance and research purposes, testing to identify cases and contacts, including the role of antibody tests, the public health value of treatments, and molecular diagnostics. Population immunity will only develop through infection up until a vaccine is developed. It needs to be thought about but is now frowned upon to permit infection in people who are at very low risk while making society as a whole safer. An infection with a reproduction number of around 1 or slightly higher can be suppressed by a population immunity of between 40 and 50 percent. Importantly, COVID-19 now has a low mortality rate in children and adolescents, about comparable to influenza. It is necessary to measure the relative impact of lockdowns and COVID-19 damage. Now is the time for urgent public discussion, especially that on population immunity, guided by epidemiological facts.