“In Winter 2030 Germany will have overcome the COVID pandemic. Excess mortality will be below pre-pandemic levels. Life expectancy for the elderly will be higher and entry restrictions for bars and restaurants will cease.”

Briefly, the reasons why I am confident in my prediction are as follows. The Bayesian prior favours the optimist's position. We are technologically advanced and we can handle this. Within two years we developed several vaccines and, as of today, we already have three treatments that appear to work when given late during the course of COVID: molnupiravir, paxlovid and fluvoxamine. Personally, I am actually surprised by how fast we developed (or repurposed) these drugs and in this case I had been myself a bit of a pessimist, who did not believe drugs will affect the pandemic; partially because I hoped vaccines will be more effective and partially because I expected drug development to take much longer. Standard epidemiologic reasoning also seems to favour my position. There are, as far as I can tell, no known respiratory disease pandemics that lasted more than 5 years. Eventually, everyone will get either 3+ vaccinations or several "natural" boosters through infection and all susceptible people will be either dead or protected. Of course, preferably we will protect them via vaccines before they die! Measuring the outcome: 1/ In a German census covering the year 2030 the life expectancy of people 60+ will be higher than the pre-pandemic life expectancy in the year 2018. Given the way the data is presented in (1) I would suggest to use 6 datapoints as an approximation and 5 of them have to be favorable (life expectancy for 60, 65, 70yo men and women). 2/ Seasonal excess mortality in December during three years covering 2030 (so let's say 2029-2031) will be lower than the three years preceding the pandemic (2017-2019). 3/ On December the 14th, 2030 there will be no limitations regarding entry to bars, clubs, restaurants and concerts. The infamous 2G and 3G rule will be abolished. 1/ Source: Sterbetafeln, durchschnittliche Lebenserwartung/Durchschnittliche Lebenserwartung (Periodensterbetafel): Deutschland, Jahre, Geschlecht, Vollendetes Alter. Link. Any values for pre-pandemic are acceptable (e.g. 2017, 2018, 2019). 2/ using the eurostat definition: "Excess mortality is expressed as the percentage rate of additional deaths in a month, compared to a “baseline” in a period not yet affected by the pandemic. The baseline adopted consists of the average number of deaths that occurred in each of the 12 months during the period 2016-2019. The higher the value, the higher the amount of additional deaths compared to the baseline. If the indicator is negative, it means that fewer deaths occurred in a particular month compared with the baseline period." 3/ 3G means entry only if you are Getestet: negative COVID test Genesen: recovered Geimpft: vaccinated https://www.bfr.bund.de/en/press_information/2021/40/3g_or_2g__how_the_rules_are_received-284676.html