We ’re now entering year three of the pandemic , and it ’s just to say we ’re all getting somewhat ghastly of it , to be honest . That ’s understandable – even those of us who have n’t had to cope with the disease itself have still had to live through months of various lockdown and curfew , and there ’s only so many times you may prompt yourself it ’s for the great goodness before you start consider “ yes , butIwant to go see my acquaintance ! ”
If that sounds intimate , you may be energize by the recent egress of a Modern watchword : endemic . That ’s right – if some governance and commenters are to be believe , the pandemic is much over . Instead , we ’re heading for a new era : the era of endemic COVID .
But what does this think of , exactly ? Is COVID not a problem any longer ? Or is this all just wishful thinking ?
What does endemic mean?
It ’s wanton to forget these days , find out them make about so often by armchair epidemiologists , but both “ endemic ” and “ pandemic ” are scientifically defined terms – and if we require to understand what ’s going on , we ’re going to have to know the deviation .
Let ’s get with the one we ’re familiar with : pandemic . The World Health Organization ( WHO ) declare a disease a pandemic when its cattle farm is worldwide and exponential – out of control and increase . Basically , just as an epidemic is a surge of caseful in one area , a pandemic is a surge of caseseverywhere .
An endemic , on the other hand , does n’t have that surge . It may well be everywhere , like the uncouth common cold – though sometimes diseases can be autochthonic to one area , like malaria – but case numbers are generally just burble along at the same rate . It ’s predictable .
So that ’s the first point to be aware of : when multitude talk about COVID-19 becoming endemic , what they ’re saying is that they foresee , for whatever rationality , cause number stabilize .
But here ’s the interrogation : is that actually happening ?
Is COVID-19 endemic yet?
If “ autochthonous ” refer to a disease with a stable pace of contagion , it ’s hard to see how COVID fit the bill mightily now .
“ The idea that we will attain endemicity anytime shortly … seems a little bit counter to the fact that we ’ve just had several weeks of massively explosive exponential growth , ” associate professor of virology Stephen Griffin toldThe Guardian . “ [ A]nd prior to that , we were still seeing exponential growth of Delta . ”
It ’s a fair head . The US see itshighest numberof COVID-19 hospitalizationseverlast calendar week , and health care system across the humans are sputter to keep up with the late upsurge in cases due to the hyper - transmissibleOmicron var. .
“ In term of endemicity , we ’re still a way off , ” Dr Catherine Smallwood , WHO Europe ’s elderly emergency brake officer , told apress briefingon January 11 .
“ Endemicity assume that , first of all , there ’s unchanging circulation of the virus at predictable levels , and potentially known and predictable waves of epidemic transmission , ” she say . “ We really need to hold back on acquit as if it ’s autochthonic before … the virus itself is behaving as if it ’s autochthonal . ”
“ I do n’t think we ’re actually anywhere near endemic , ” Lawrence Young from the University of Warwick , UK , toldNew Scientist . “ I think a lot of it is wishful thought process . ”
And just as crucial as understanding what endemicityisis understanding what itisn’t . It is n’t , for instance , a input on rigourousness – as Griffin told The Guardian : “ Smallpox was endemic , polio is indigenous , Lassa fever is endemic , and malaria is autochthonal … Endemic does not mean that something recede its teeth at all . ”
And it does n’t mean it ’s gone away , either . OC43 , one of the coronaviruses that can get the rough-cut cold , is autochthonous , the New Scientist point out , and that affects around 45,000 people every day in the UK alone .
Will COVID become endemic?
So will COVID become endemic ? Perhaps – but we ca n’t know yet when or even if it will find . The transition into endemicity is often only find in retrospect , and at the moment , as Dr Smallwood said , we ’re “ still a way off ” .
Many expert concur it ’s too before long to label the virus as endemic when it ’s still spreading and potentially evolving – peculiarly in bombastic parts of the unvaccinated world . As the WHO hasoften pointed out , " vaccine fairness will accelerate the end of the pandemic . " Vaccine unfairness will prolong it .
“ What we ’re attend at the mo , come into 2022 , is nowhere near [ endemicity ] … we ca n’t just sit back and see a unchanging charge per unit of transmission , ” Dr Smallwood said .
“ We still have a vast amount of uncertainness , we still have a virus that ’s evolve quite quickly and posing quite new challenges … It may become endemic in due class , but pinning that down to 2022 is a niggling bit difficult at this stage . ”
