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

[o_mom]

Thought of this thread when I read this on Twitter today: https://twitter.com/EpiEllie/status/...8804961304581?

Some of the more relevant points (IMO):


"In more technical terms “endemic” means: “Controlled at or below an ‘acceptable’ level”
What level is “acceptable” differs from place to place, over time & between diseases, and it may not always be explicit, but when a disease is endemic, there is a threshold!"


"Whether a disease is endemic, epidemic, eliminated, or eradicated does NOT tell us how serious it is, and does NOT tell us how many people get sick or die.
We have to CHOOSE that number."


"“endemic” doesn’t mean “never think about covid again”. It’s exactly the opposite!
Endemic means someone is ALWAYS thinking about covid.
Endemic means public health is always monitoring disease & always intervening when cases cross the “acceptable” level."

[carolinamama]

As of January 19th, the WHO Emergency Committee continued to call COVID19 a "public health threat of international concern", meaning it's still officially a pandemic. The epidemiologists, virologists, physicians and other researchers that I follow are not changing their talk to endemic. Most acknowledge that this virus has surprised us so many times and are more cautious to make assumptions about it's future. Ashish Jha did speak about shifting our thinking to living with Covid vs eradication but emphasized that we are very much still in a pandemic.

Last Friday was the 10th deadliest day of the pandemic for the US with 3,896 deaths reported, per Katelyn Jetalina, an epidemiologist who posts as Your Local Epidemiologist. I do see many signs IRL of people choosing to live more like it's endemic so I suppose it's a matter of acceptance.