SARS-CoV-2: Pandemic or endemic ?

                    SARS-CoV-2                            Shutterstock

 
As the world is preoccupied with the war in Europe, other geopolitical tensions and economic recovery, the pandemic has taken more of a backseat than its current risk would suggest is prudent. COVID-19 is far from gone and continues to circulate in communities world-wide. While the impact has been lessened through an extraordinary vaccination program, the virus still has capacity to develop variants as it has done with Delta and the more infectious Omicron. With an uneven supply and distribution of vaccines many communities particularly in developing nations or conflict zones remain potentially exposed to the virus and hence possible hosts for variants to develop. The detection of a merged Delticron variant (Delta and Omicron) being a point in case.

Various statements from Governments around the world, rather than health professionals, have canvassed that living with COVID-19 is the new normal as the virus is now more endemic than pandemic. This is not the case. As the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned, classifying COVID-19 as endemic assumes there is stable circulation of the virus at predictable levels with predictable waves of transmission.

Bringing the virus to manageable levels depends on four key factors: global vaccination rates, the evolution of the virus itself; medical advances in both limiting infection and the treatment of those infected; and preventative measures such as improved ventilation and social distancing. At this time the race between vaccine development and deployment versus evolution of COVID-19 variants is head to head.

Terminology and meaning is important in this context. An epidemic is a disease that is surging in cases, and a pandemic is an epidemic that has spread over several continents. For a disease to be endemic the number of cases is more or less stable with possible seasonal fluctations similar, for example, to colds and flu. As COVID -19 is going through surges in different countries at present, it cannot be termed as endemic at this time.