What is an endemic illness and when could COVID-19 become one?

A lot of people are talking about how COVID-19 will end up becoming an endemic illness instead of a pandemic one, but when might this happen and what does it actually mean? Read on to find out.
A disease is said to be endemic when it is “regularly found among particular people or in a certain area”.
Since the arrival of the omicron variant, which is more contagious but also milder than previous variants, experts have been speaking of the probability that sooner or later the COVID-19 pandemic will inevitably change into an endemic.
The illness caused by coronavirus is currently a pandemic, as it occurs over a very large area, crosses international borders and generally affects huge numbers of people. Once a greater level of herd immunity is reached, the pandemic will become endemic.
Apart from being limited to specific geographical zones, it is thought that outbreaks will be limited to specific times of the year, like what happens with the flu. This means that it will become yet another seasonal illness.
Endemic seems to imply a certain level of normality that has never been the case with the pandemic. The United Kingdom and Spain have been some of the first countries to show that they are in favour of considering COVID-19 to be endemic.
The measures adopted once the virus becomes endemic would include no longer counting the daily numbers of cases and not performing so many tests, something that has been rejected by the World Health Organisation. The WHO has condemned the Spanish government’s suggestion of a change in strategy in the way that COVID-19 is monitored once the sixth wave ends.
The director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, Mike Ryan, said that the transformation of the pandemic into an endemic is not necessarily good news, nor is it the light at the end of the tunnel. “Endemic malaria, endemic HIV kill hundreds of thousands of people every year — endemic does not mean ‘good,’ it just means ‘here forever’,” he said.
________________________________________________________________________
Thank you for taking the time to read this article, do remember to come back and check The Euro Weekly News website for all your up-to-date local and international news stories and remember, you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.