A question for those of you closely following the virology podcasts and studies…

[gatorsmom]

Have any virologists or epidemiologists started to speculate when COVID19 will be considered endemic? Does it matter than some form of COVID19 has reached most people in the US? I mean, by the end of this Omicron surge, it seems to me, a large portion of the population will have either been vaccinated or infected (and have antibodies). Does it depend on what percentage of the population has antibodies or is vaxxed? Does it depend on how the healthcare system is faring? At what point will the healthcare departments stop contact tracing? At what point will people who have covid19 no longer have to quarantine?

I’m just curious when it will be made official because I get the sense that so many communities are already either treating this like it’s endemic or are moving closer to that. Frankly, COVID19 was so mild for my family that dd never had symptoms other than a headache. If I hadn’t tested her or DS2, we would never have known. I know that’s still not the case for all those people showing up at the hospital with it, but I’m wondering what predictions are for when we will be at that point. You all are much better researchers than I am. I can’t seem to find that info on the internet.

[ang79]

I agree that many communities are starting to treat it as endemic (apparently that was the consensus in a school board meeting in a different district in my county earlier this week). But, our community transmission rate is still very high, as is our hospitalizations, so I don’t think we are anywhere near that point yet locally. I keep seeing articles of hope that we are working towards that but we need to get through omnicron first and hope another variant doesn’t pop up while our medical
Systems are recovering from this latest surge.


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[georgiegirl]

Endemic also means that the virus is predictable, and that’s not the case yet.

[robinsmommy]

Omicron infects those who had prior infection from other variants at a high rate. And there begins to be some question of reinfection with Omicron the original version and/or the new sub variant. So “herd immunity” doesn’t look attainable without quickly vaccinating enough of the world to greatly reduce spread and prevent another variant.

People and governments are treating it as endemic whether it is or not, partially because of prioritizing the short term economy over health (esp with the question of Long Covid still out there- lots of folks with some level of disability would be a huge, long term burden economically), and partially because it is becoming the politically expedient thing to do when so many are tired of the pandemic.

Things might look better if we’d open up vaccine production/distribution (buh-bye patents!) and actually help get more folks in poor countries vaccinated in a timely way. “Gifting” them with vaccine near expiration is not a solution. Economically, this is probably a cheaper long term solution than repeated waves causing issues.

And we are also distracted from other potential issues, like the bird flu that continues to spread on other continents. Likely a matter of time there before it makes the jump to being an issue in other places/ways.

ETA: OP, here is a link to a free substack article that talks a bit about where we are and where we may be going that was posted just a bit ago.

Spoiler: we don’t really know what will happen with Covid now.

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/where-do-we-stand-with-omicron

[dogmom]

I think the best definition of endemic is you know it when you see it. Given people are getting reinfected with new variants, our hospitals can’t handle the waves, and immunity wanes it doesn’t look like it’s settled to endemic yet. Or I sure hope this isn't endemic. That would mean we would be experiencing Covid as we are now until we get some miracle treatment. Small pox was endemic. Small pox sucked.

[nfceagles]

I think the best definition of endemic is you know it when you see it. Given people are getting reinfected with new variants, our hospitals can’t handle the waves, and immunity wanes it doesn’t look like it’s settled to endemic yet. Or I sure hope this is endemic. That would mean we would be experiencing Covid as we are now until we get some miracle treatment. Small pox was endemic. Small pox sucked.

Pretty sure you meant ISN’T endemic and I just wanted to concur. If this is the the steady endemic state we face going forward it stinks. I hope this isn’t it.


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[o_mom]

Pretty sure you meant ISN’T endemic and I just wanted to concur. If this is the the steady endemic state we face going forward it stinks. I hope this isn’t it.


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Agreed. If this is endemic, we are going to have to invest heavily in more healthcare infrastructure, including HCPs. We already have a shortage of MDs due to many factors, including political ones. We are currently running at 10x annual flu deaths, and these are not quick and cheap deaths, many are medically intensive deaths.

There will need to be more beds, more staff, increased insurance premiums to pay for it all. Not to mention the loss of workforce due to deaths and disability. Social Security insolvency has been moved up by a year because even though fewer people are collecting, it is more than offset by the lack of taxes collected and new disability claims.

[dogmom]

Pretty sure you meant ISN’T endemic and I just wanted to concur. If this is the the steady endemic state we face going forward it stinks. I hope this isn’t it.


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Oh yeah, meant I hope it ISN'T endemic.

If it is endemic...well, I just think we are 20 years into the 100 year phase of the Jackpot in William Gibson's Jackpot Trilogy. It's a science fiction series (2 out of 3 books written) from the guy who coined the term cyberspace. Basically, it switches back and forth from the near future to the far future. In the far future 80% of the human population is gone and most of the animal species we know are gone. It wasn't one thing, but a lot of things, from the books: "the jackpot killed 80 percent of every last person alive…water shortages, crop failures, honeybees gone…diseases that were never quite the one big pandemic…" Eventually the population stabilizes because tech sort of catches up to help us.

Sometimes I wish I could unread those books...

[o_mom]

Sometimes I wish I could unread those books...

We just finished watching Station Eleven (post pandemic world) and Chernobyl (documentary). Both super good, but talk about depressing!!

Yes, it could be so much worse, but it is still bad out there. People are just numb to the loss. COVID is now the 3rx leading cause of death and people still make statements like "we don't get this worked up over cancer", and I want to scream that you don't get cancer just by going to the grocery, or pharmacy, or getting a mammogram, or any number of daily activities.

[dogmom]

We just finished watching Station Eleven (post pandemic world) and Chernobyl (documentary). Both super good, but talk about depressing!!

Yes, it could be so much worse, but it is still bad out there. People are just numb to the loss. COVID is now the 3rx leading cause of death and people still make statements like "we don't get this worked up over cancer", and I want to scream that you don't get cancer just by going to the grocery, or pharmacy, or getting a mammogram, or any number of daily activities.

Usually I just want to scream at them: Cancer isn’t one monolithic disease, it’s a bunch of diseases. Just like Covid is only one infectious disease, there a bunches of them. And, hey, fun fact, some of those infectious disease actually cause cancer! Which-wait for it-we actually have a vaccine for one of them, but hey, that’s controversial also.