As California’s COVID emergency ends, Sacramento infectious disease expert shares reflections

It has been a long, arduous, confusing, frustrating and stressful three years with COVID-19. 

But this week, there is a significant change and possibly a renewed sense of hope — even symbolic — for Californians as the state’s emergency declaration expires. Many of the rules, regulations, laws and things that changed our way of life for the past three years are sunsetting. 

COVID-19 states of emergency are ending. Here’s what’s changing.

While the state’s emergency declaration is officially ending, the fact remains that COVID is still with us: California has just marked 100,000 lives lost to COVID, according to state health authorities. 

So, what now? How do we all move forward? What lessons have we learned about medicine? Our response? The government’s response? Ourselves? 

Since the beginning, several experts in the Sacramento region were sought to help explain both the concerning and hopeful developments with the virus and provide some context: one of them being Dr. Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at UC Davis Health.  

CapRadio’s Vicki Gonzalez sat down with Dr. Blumberg this week and asked him to share his reflections on the past three years, not only as an infectious disease expert, but also as a person.   

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

On the first couple months of the pandemic

I mean, it's amazing to think back to that January and even February [of 2020] when we were just getting into it, where [COVID] was more theoretical and we … didn't have any of those restrictions that then came into effect. Even to think about those early days when we had such severe shutdowns, when everything was virtually closed, people weren't going out at all. We've come such a long way since then. It's almost traumatic to think about that because it was so it was so difficult for so many people. 

On if vaccine hesitancy has increased since the start of the pandemic

We have had vaccine hesitancy since the development of vaccines, for hundreds of years … and it has been getting worse over the past few years. And with the COVID vaccination, [vaccine hesitancy has] really reached a peak. A lot of that is because of social media’s ability to amplify these messages. 

And in addition to the vaccine messages, of course, we still have people who are talking about ivermectin, [an anti-parasitic medication], as if that's working, even though we've had several high quality scientific studies debunking the use of ivermectin. So yeah, medical misinformation is still a problem. 

On how health-related conversations have changed 

On a public health level, it's having clear and consistent messaging … we haven't always had that from authority figures, especially from politicians. On a [patient] level, I think we really do need to be able to respond to individual concerns. You can't just say, ‘get the vaccine, you have to,’ if people are reluctant. You have to say, ‘well, what specific thing are you concerned about?’ because different people are concerned about different things. 

Then there's also the issue of COVID and severity of infection: For the vast majority of people who get COVID, it will be a mild infection and will be an outpatient illness, they'll recover and they won't have consequences. But for some people it will be severe: It will result in hospitalization that might result in death. Even people who have a mild infection might have long term consequences, such as long COVID. I think it's important for people to realize that there's more than one reason to be vaccinated. 

On how everyday life may have changed forever

One of the things I'm hoping [for] is that voluntarily masking in public continues … I got one upper respiratory tract infection over the past three years. And that's not many, for me, because I'm usually in kids’ faces a lot. We've got scientific studies to prove that not only do masks work and prevent COVID, but they also prevent influenza and other common community associated respiratory infections. I'm hopeful that's a positive outcome from the pandemic. 

The development of COVID tests was good, and now we're getting development of over-the-counter flu tests. The reason both of those are useful is that we know that if people want it, they can get antiviral treatment — for influenza or for COVID — that is effective and will help you recover faster and decrease risk of serious infections. If you can diagnose yourself and get that prescription from your health care provider, you can get better faster without even going to the office. So that's an advantage. 

On whether we’re better prepared for another pandemic

I'm hopeful, I think we are better prepared now. The danger is the backsliding that may occur as we move further and further away from the pandemic. So if, for example, the next pandemic is 20 years from now, in the meantime the risk is that people will become complacent and there will be more cuts to public health next time there's a budget crisis. That's not going to serve us well in the future. 

On what we might be talking about related to COVID-19 a year from now

My hope is that [COVID-19] will become endemic, it will become similar to influenza. The variants won't be that important; they'll be a little bit interesting, but they won't be dramatic. [I hope] we will settle into a seasonal pattern with COVID so that we can do what we do with influenza, and get one seasonal booster every year instead of this 4 to 6 month booster.