COLUMBUS, Ohio — As COVID-19 hospitalizations drop in Ohio, health officials are looking at what's next for the pandemic.
Overall, hospitalizations have dropped 48% since reaching a pandemic high in mid-January, according to Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff.
The decline raises questions about when COVID-19 will lose its pandemic status.
“So now the question for us is how do we learn to live with it," Dr. Vanderhoff said. "At what point have we moved from something that’s truly a pandemic to more of an endemic?"
A pandemic describes a period of time where the spread of a disease in a population that has no immunity, while an endemic exists indefinitely.
Through vaccines and being exposed to the virus, OhioHealth Infectious Disease Physician Dr. Joseph Gastaldo said more people now have some level of immunity protecting them from severe disease, hospitalization, or death.
"The immunity you get from vaccines is not only better than natural immunity. It is more observable and it's something that can be studied more in the real world. And we also know, too, that for somebody who has had COVID, it is safe to vaccinate them. And they are left with what we really call hybrid immunity, which is a better type of immunity than immunity from natural infection or immunity from being vaccinated alone," he said.
State health officials continue urging everyone to get vaccinated and boosted. Right now, more than 60% of the state's population has received at least one COVID-19 shot.