{"id":11927,"date":"2026-04-29T19:56:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T00:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11927"},"modified":"2026-04-29T19:56:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T00:56:44","slug":"what-happened-to-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/04\/29\/what-happened-to-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"What happened to Covid?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/04\/27\/is-covid-still-a-thing-expert-analysis-who-needs-vaccine-booster-shot\/\">STAT<\/a> The threat of the virus has clearly subsided, but opinions vary on why and how much of a risk remains. In April 2020, people around the globe were struggling to come to grips with the strictures of unprecedented societal shutdowns aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2020\/03\/11\/flattening-curve-coronavirus\/\">Flattening the curve<\/a>, in 2020-speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Six years later, school and business closures, mask wearing, and social distancing are dim, unpleasant memories. And Covid, though it still animates political animus plenty, feels like a threat from yesteryear.\u00a0 What\u2019s happened here? Have humans and the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the cause of Covid, reached a detente? Does this virus that ended an\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news\/item\/05-05-2022-14.9-million-excess-deaths-were-associated-with-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-2020-and-2021\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"estimated 15 million lives, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">estimated 15 million lives<\/a>\u00a0globally in 2020-2021 alone still pose a major hazard? After two consecutive winters when influenza, not Covid, was the bug sending hordes to their beds, is Covid now more nuisance than peril?<br><br><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>STAT The threat of the virus has clearly subsided, but opinions vary on why and how much of a risk remains. In April 2020, people around the globe were struggling to come to grips with the strictures of unprecedented societal shutdowns aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19.&nbsp;Flattening the curve, in 2020-speak. Six years later, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11927"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11928,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11927\/revisions\/11928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}