Endemic Covid-19
The key question—which the world hasn’t had to deal with at this scale in living memory—is how do we move on, rationally and emotionally, from a state of acute [emergency] to a state of transition to endemicity - Jeremy Farrar
image by: Roy Denny van Ommen
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From pandemic to endemic: this is how we might get back to normal
The good news: while it’s difficult to predict the exact timing, most scientists agree that the Covid-19 pandemic will end and that the virus will become endemic. That means the virus will probably never be eliminated entirely, but as more people get vaccinated and become exposed to it, infections will eventually arise at a consistently low rate, and fewer people will become severely ill. An area where vaccination and booster rates are high will probably see endemicity sooner than a region with lower rates.
What does that transition look like?
In practical terms, there will be an announcement. The World Health Organization and local health agencies will…
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... there are still many mysteries about the virus and the pandemic it caused. They range from the technical — what role do autoantibodies play in long Covid? Can a pan-coronavirus vaccine actually be developed? — to the philosophical, such as how can we rebuild trust in our institutions and each other? Debate still festers, too, over the virus’s origins, despite recent studies adding evidence that it spilled over from wildlife.
Endemicity Is Meaningless
The coronavirus will be with us forever. But we still have no idea what happens next.
How Does This End?
The bottom line is that Covid now presents the sort of risk to most vaccinated people that we unthinkingly accept in other parts of life. And there is not going to be a day when we wake up to headlines proclaiming that Covid is defeated. In many ways, the future of the virus has arrived.
US experts question whether counting Covid cases is still the right approach
“Once you have accepted the virus is endemic, just like influenza, then you never track cases because we never screen like this for any other viruses, we track what is causing disease and getting people hospitalized,” Gandhi said.
Covid Will Become Endemic. The World Must Decide What That Means
“The key question—which the world hasn’t had to deal with at this scale in living memory—is how do we move on, rationally and emotionally, from a state of acute [emergency] to a state of transition to endemicity?” says Jeremy Farrar, an infectious disease physician who is director of the global health philanthropy the Wellcome Trust. “That transition period is going to be very bumpy, and will look very, very different around the world.”
COVID-19 will likely shift from pandemic to endemic — but what does that mean?
Scientists predict COVID will become endemic over time but there will still be sporadic outbreaks where it gets out of control. The transition from pandemic to endemic will likely play out differently in different locations around the world.
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Has Covid-19 gone from pandemic to endemic?
... former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner and current Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb said we’re “transitioning from this being a pandemic to being more of an endemic virus, at least here in the United States and other Western markets.
How you’ll know when Covid-19 has gone from “pandemic” to “endemic”
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Is COVID-19 here to stay? A team of biologists explains what it means for a virus to become endemic
So why did the first SARS virus from 2003 (SARS-CoV) go extinct while this one (SARS-CoV-2) may become endemic?
The coronavirus is here to stay — here’s what that means
“The virus becoming endemic is likely, but the pattern that it will take is hard to predict,” says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist from Georgetown University, who is based in Seattle, Washington. This will determine the societal costs of SARS-CoV-2 for 5, 10 or even 50 years in the future.
The Endemic Coronaviruses and What They Might Tell us About COVID-19
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What Does Endemic Mean and Will Covid-19 Become an Endemic Disease?
The disease that caused the global pandemic will likely circulate for the foreseeable future, public-health experts say.
What Is an Endemic Virus, Exactly? WHO Fears COVID-19 “May Never Go Away”
The term “endemic” is actually part of a sliding scale of sorts when it comes to disease classifications.
What will it be like when COVID-19 becomes endemic?
The expectation that COVID-19 will become endemic essentially means that the pandemic will not end with the virus disappearing; instead, the optimistic view is that enough people will gain immune protection from vaccination and from natural infection such that there will be less transmission and much less COVID-19-related hospitalization and death, even as the virus continues to circulate.
With Omicron variant, will Covid-19 pandemic become endemic like the 1918 Spanish flu?
The Spanish Flu lasted for nearly two years, before abating and becoming an endemic by 1920. Many health experts are wondering if the Omicron variant, touted as milder, can hasten Covid-19's descent into endemic from a pandemic.
From pandemic to endemic: this is how we might get back to normal
Covid-19 is unlikely to be eradicated, experts say, but societies in the past have learned to live with diseases.
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