PANDEMICSWhen Will COVID-19 Become Endemic?
Government leaders are optimistic that COVID-19 is becoming endemic, meaning more predictable and manageable. But many scientists say it’s too soon to behave like the pandemic is over.
Government leaders are optimistic that COVID-19 is becoming endemic, meaning more predictable and manageable. But many scientists say it’s too soon to behave like the pandemic is over.
What does “endemic” mean?
Epidemiologists say a disease is endemic when its presence becomes steady in a particular region, or at least predictable, as with seasonal influenza. But there’s no consensus on the conditions for meeting this benchmark. By this broad definition, endemicity doesn’t necessarily mean a disease is rare or common, mild or severe. For example, infection rates can still be high; they just have to remain static. Malaria, which is endemic in dozens of countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, killed more than six hundred thousand people in 2020.
It’s easier to define endemicity in retrospect, when scientists are able to determine a baseline level because the disease has reached an equilibrium. This can be possible when the general population has protection from the disease, whether from vaccination or prior infection.
What does public health policy look like when a disease becomes endemic?
An endemic disease can still (and often does) require a robust policy response. The United States and many other countries urge individuals to get a flu vaccination each year, and they promote practices such as frequent handwashing and covering one’s mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing. For malaria and HIV, which is also endemic, various global initiatives are ongoing to develop more effective and accessible prevention tools. However, the responses are typically not as intense as those during a pandemic, when surging infections prompt the type of tight restrictions seen throughout the COVID-19 crisis.
Is COVID-19 becoming an endemic disease?
It’s still too early to tell. Many government and industry leaders are promoting policy shifts in that direction, but officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health experts have warned against treating COVID-19 as an endemic disease. By the end of 2022, there were several hundred thousand new infections and hundreds of deaths being reported worldwide each day, and new variants of the virus continued to emerge. However, with new vaccines and treatments, the number of people dying from COVID-19 had gone down dramatically. The WHO didn’t declare any new strains of omicron a “variant of concern” in 2022, and by year’s end, none had produced the kind of toll the world saw with delta or the original strain of omicron.
