4 years after the start of COVID-19 pandemic, North Bay health care officials see hopeful signs virus settles into flu-like pattern

Mar. 15—Four years after the start of the deadliest pandemic in more than century, North Bay infectious disease expert Dr. Gary Green has spent a lot of time looking at the peaks and troughs of COVID-19 infections.

Of late, he's been comparing the daily infection numbers with historic "epi curves" for 1918 influenza deaths. The correlation with COVID-19 trends is striking, he said.

And the similarities are clear enough to signal the end of the current pandemic, four years after it began, he said.

"They're really identical," Green said. "When you come to a new pandemic, it takes like four years for the population to sort of settle in, in order for it to become a seasonal thing."

"Everyone is so tired of this, but I think that this four-year mark is going to be important," he added.

Green said the 1918 pandemic had three "massive waves" during the first 12 months of the global outbreak, between the summers of 1918 and 1919. But that pandemic went on for three more years, just as COVID-19 has, he said.

"Based on the science of epidemiology, I think this could be the year that COVID becomes seasonal," Green said.

But even during the current troughs, a significant amount of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causes COVID-19 illness, continues to be spread.

Nevertheless, the world is a lot different today than it was four years ago. Both state and federal governments across the country have long declared the end of COVID-19 emergency declarations. The virus is no longer straining health care systems and latest strains are much less severe compared to the deadly delta variant.

Kaiser Permamente memorial

On Friday, administrative and medical staff at Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center marked the four-year anniversary of the local start of the pandemic with a "remembrance event."

They gathered in an outdoor amphitheater on the southwest corner of the hospital, where a memorial plaque has been mounted on a landscape boulder. The plaque honors those "lives impacted by COVID-19" and recognized the hundreds of health care staff "whose skill and caring saved countless lives."

Abhishek Dosi, Kaiser Santa Rosa's senior vice president and regional manager, and Dr. Patricia Hiserote, Kaiser's local physician in chief, both recognized the work and dedication of Kaiser's staff throughout the pandemic.

Hiserote pointed out that even before the pandemic, Kaiser staff were tested by years of disastrous wildfires and floods. When the pandemic hit, fear of the unknown challenge gripped all health care workers.

"Most of us take oaths — this isn't just a job, this is a vocation — and yet those oaths never came into such crystallization when you realized every day going to work maybe be your last day," Hiserote said.

Infectious disease physician Dr. Jessica August, who had just started working at Kaiser when the pandemic hit, recalled the fear and hardships of that time.

"I will never forget the first patient who was intubated here," August said. "He was praying to himself in Spanish as the tube went in, and I cried with his family when he was unable to be liberated from the machine and succumbed to the virus."

She also recalled the support she received from other staff when her daughter was "unceremoniously fired" from day care and not allowed to return because August and her husband worked in health care.

But she said she also recalled the hope she felt when her husband was vaccinated for the first time.

Hope for seasonal COVID-19

Speaking after the memorial dedication, August said she has high hopes that COVID-19 will soon become a seasonal disease, like influenza and other respiratory viruses.

"I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful," she said. "I do suspect we will continue to see these same peaks and valleys, and I won't be surprised if in the fall we see another one and then over the holidays again next year."

COVID-19 deaths in Sonoa County since March 2020 hit 580 by last month, and more than 4,900 cases involving hospitalization.

August said that since the start of the pandemic four years ago, the trend of peaks and troughs of COVID-19 infection has persisted throughout each year. She said she'd love so see a summer with little to no COVID-19 activity, as with influenza.

With the recent arrival of warmer spring weather, transmission of all respiratory viruses is trending downward, August said.

"Really not much happening in the hospital in terms of COVID admissions," she said. "Almost none, so that's wonderful."

Both August and Green pointed out that COVID-19 still poses a serious danger to some groups, particularly frail seniors and those with severely compromised immune systems.

These includes patients who have received solid organ transplants, bone marrow transplants or those on immunosuppressive drugs for rheumatalogic conditions.

"Those patients, we still want to be sure that we are monitoring them and getting them the proper antivirals that they may need," August said.

Second shot for 65+

Green and August also welcomed the latest vaccine guidance on COVID-19 from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccinations.

The CDC recommends people 65 and older receive a second updated vaccine in the spring, if it's been four months since their first updated vaccine shot. The updated COVID-19 vaccines more closely target the XBB strain of the Omicron variant, according to the CDC.

Green said at this point COVID-19, for most health young people, feels like a bad cold.

"In fact, it doesn't even feel like the flu, feels like just a bad cold," he said. "If you're older, we worry about the bad cold becoming pneumonia."

One of the benefits of the vaccine is that it could reduce the chances of getting long COVID, he added.

"There's a recent study that came out that showed people who have the updated vaccine for COVID have a 58% lower risk for developing long COVID should they become infected."

There's a benefit to everyone in getting the vaccine, he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.

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