By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Life is slowly starting to return to normal, or as close to normal as possible, two years after the world was shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biologist from Missouri Western State University Gary Clapp, a COVID consultant for Missouri Western, St. Joseph, and Buchanan County, says during the month of April positive case numbers, while not being reported daily, remained low with an average of five or six cases confirmed positive.
"So, that's a good thing and maybe we are moving towards more of an endemic than a pandemic," Clapp tells KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr. "I guess we also didn't kill to many people this time through as well for this month."
Clapp says he has missed tracking the numbers, but the fact that the numbers are low enough they don't need tracked is a good sign.
Clapp says now we are about as close to a new normal as possible, because people started to adapt.
"The view that our public seems to be taking is, this is too much, we have to sort of settle this down a little bit and get back to some sort of normalcy of life," Clapp explains. "And if that's accepting the fact that we're going to have flus, influenza, SARS, COVID, and we're going to have to deal with it then we're going to deal with it."
Clapp says the numbers still need to be analyzed, but the possibility exists that COVID could end up less deadly than the flu.
"Those are things like our Supreme Court that we're going to have kind of wait and see what those numbers come out to be," Clapp laughs with Birr. "Because after we have taken out a segment of the population and after we've all been exposed to it, then we will have a retro new normal, I don't think we've quite reached that spot yet but, in our heads, we have two years plus."
Clapp says it could be even longer than two years because we don't know when that first case arrived for sure, adding that two years was a long time to be aware of everyone everywhere people went.