United States: Four years have passed since SARS-CoV-2 sparked a devastating global pandemic, but now US health officials have revealed that it is now considered an endemic disease.
While addressing the same, the deputy director for science at the CDC’s coronavirus and respiratory viruses – Aron Hall, mentioned, “At this point, COVID-19 can be described as endemic throughout the world,” according to reports by NPR News.
This announcement specifically means that COVID-19 will remain here in predictable ways.
The classification doesn’t alter any official advice on how people should handle the virus. However, it does recognize that the SARS-CoV2 virus, which causes COVID, will keep circulating and causing illness indefinitely. This highlights the ongoing importance of getting vaccinated and taking other precautions to minimize risk.
Furthermore, Hall stated, “It is still a very significant problem, but one that can now be managed against the backdrop of many public health threats and not as sort of a singular pandemic threat. And so how we approach COVID-19 is very similar to how we approach other endemic diseases.”
The health officials have called coronavirus as a “pandemic” since the world has been exploded with the virus. However, now US officials have termed it “endemic” which cannot be explained clearly but it generally refers to a disease that become entrenched in one place, such as malaria in the Central and South America as well as sub-Saharan Africa.
If a disease becomes endemic, then the people have to learn to live with it.
Despite the ongoing spread of COVID, daily life has largely returned to normal for most people, even amid this summer’s wave of infections. For instance, on Wednesday, Noah Lyles competed in his Olympic race while experiencing COVID symptoms and still secured a bronze medal. Similarly, President Biden continued working from home during his recent COVID infection.
It appears that COVID is becoming a regular part of life. So, NPR contacted the CDC and other experts to see if they believe it’s time to start calling COVID endemic, according to reports by NPR.
Comments from Experts!
The dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, who served as the White House COVID-19 response coordinator for President Biden – Dr Ashish Jha, stated, “Yeah, I think in the way that most people think about the notion of endemic — something that’s just around that we have to manage on an ongoing basis — yeah, absolutely, COVID is endemic in that way.”
But this is not true for all. An epidemiologist – Katelyn Jetelina, stated, “There’s still a lot of unpredictability with this virus. And a lot of scientists, including myself, think it’s going to take at least a decade for SARS-CoV2 to really find this really predictable pattern. I hope that, over time, it will fade into the background. But we’re just not there yet,” as per NPR.
However, it is to be noted that Hall and Jha both agrees that COVID-19 infection is unpredictable but the debate about its becoming endemic is still there.
Hall was quoted saying, “The best way to describe COVID right now is as endemic but with these periodic epidemics. And those epidemics can vary in terms of their timing and magnitude. And that’s exactly why ongoing vigilance and surveillance is critical.”