Is COVID-19 still endemic?Infectious disease experts participate

We are now in the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic. And it’s only natural to wonder when the constant decline and case flow will eventually end. Some people want the coronavirus to go away someday, but most public health experts agree that the virus will never actually go away.

“SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, does not go away,” said Thomas Russo, MD, professor and head of infectious diseases at the University at Buffalo, New York. Dr. William Schaffner, MD, Infectious Disease Specialist and Professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said:

Before delving into science, you may be wondering what endemic means. The phrase “endemic” refers to “the constant presence and / or abnormal prevalence of disease or infectious pathogens in populations within a geographical area.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). When a disease or virus is endemic, it exists at a specific level over time and tends to have a fairly consistent case level.

The endemic virus may have hotspots here and there in certain parts of the country, but the levels are almost consistent, says Dr. Russo.

According to experts, what happens at some point is that the virus Will I have endemic disease. Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), first mentioned in November 2020 that COVID-19 could reach endemic disease.Chronically, “he said. Webinar.. “It may be endemic, we just have to be careful.”

Dr. Fauci repeated his thoughts again COVID-19 becomes endemic In February 2022 World Economic Forum Davos.. “Looking at the history of infectious diseases, only one human infection has been eradicated, it’s smallpox. It won’t happen with this virus,” he said. “But hopefully it will be low enough not to disrupt our normal social, economic, and other interactions. It feels most people … when talking about fads. That is, the epidemic is integrated into the various infectious diseases we experience. “

So … are we there anymore? Many people believe that this means we have reached an endemic condition, as the CDC regulates quarantine times. But is this accurate? Here’s what you need to know:

Is COVID-19 popular yet?

It depends on who you talk to. Dr. Russo says we are “shifting” from a pandemic to an endemic state, but we are not there yet. “Currently, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 are declining across the country,” he says. “In some areas there are regional outbreaks and in others it is quiet.” The rise of the BA.2 variant has led to a surge in cases again in some areas, delaying the transition to endemic disease and the situation. There was uncertainty about where we were heading, Dr. Russo said.

“We are clearly moving in that direction,” says Dr. Schaffner. “CDC and White House [do] It seems that we are not ready to declare that we are in an endemic condition. When people say “the pandemic is over”, people may mistakenly think “you don’t have to worry about COVID anymore”, but that’s not the case.

However, Amesh A. Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Health and Security Center, an infectious disease expert, states that COVID-19 is already endemic. “I think COVID-19 is endemic in the United States because it’s ubiquitous and doesn’t cause the disease too fast for hospitals to handle,” he says. “COVID-19 always causes a baseline number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, but endemic conditions can no longer overwhelm hospitals as they once did.”

When will COVID become popular?

In particular, it’s hard to say, as there are usually no big announcements about this kind of thing. “There is no official designation when the disease becomes endemic,” says Dr. Adalja. Instead, “there is a general understanding between the public health and infectious disease communities that the disease has reached an endemic state,” says Dr. Schaffner.

Predicting when a COVID epidemic should be a little tricky, says Dr. Russo, because there is always the risk that new variants will slow or reverse the process. “We could go in either direction in the future,” he says. “If new variants do not occur and people keep up with vaccination, we may continue to work, or if new problematic variants that avoid immunity occur, another direction. You can proceed to. This is a dynamic situation. “

Regarding the role that vaccines play in helping to eradicate pandemics, Dr. Russo says vaccines definitely help. “The key to making the virus endemic and manageable is how much immunity we have. More immunity over time, including vaccination and infectious diseases. Is required. booster as needed. This helps to make the virus easier to manage, “he says.

But it’s hard to say what will change after the COVID epidemic, says Dr. Schaffner. “Do you need boosters on a regular basis? Under certain circumstances, do we still have to? Please wear a mask?? Do you expect seasonality, that is, more COVID in winter than in summer? I don’t know yet, “he says. “It may be COVID, just as we live and deal with the flu.”

Endemic vs. pandemic

Endemic is not the same as a pandemic. A pandemic is an event that occurs when a disease spreads to multiple countries and affects many people. CDC I will explain.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020, and the designation has not been officially changed since then.

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