A health official reported that COVID-19 is not likely to go away very soon and will remain for years to come.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spoke at a Chatham House webinar in November. He refused to agree with the notion that COVID-19 would be gone in the next few years.
"We need to plan that this is something we may need to maintain control over chronically. It may be something that becomes endemic, that we have [just to be] careful about," Fauci said.
So, what is an endemic disorder and how is COVID-19 likely to become one? Experts claim that several endemic diseases in the United States may foreshadow what the coronavirus disease may look like in the coming years.
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What is Endemic?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chronic disease refers to a disease or other contagious agents continuously active over a prolonged period within a community.
An outbreak corresponds to a dramatic rise in the number of cases of a disease in a certain geographic region, sometimes unexpectedly. COVID-19 first started to spread in China.
Outbreaks are virtually similar to epidemics, but they exist within a smaller regional region like a town or province.
Meanwhile, as we've learned with the coronavirus over the last year, a pandemic happens as an outbreak travels through multiple nations and continents.
Pandemic vs. Epidemic vs. Endemic vs. Outbreak
Although it does not include exact meanings for conversational usage of these terms, understanding the distinction is valuable to help you properly grasp public health news and relevant public health responses. Here are the terms, according to Intermountain Healthcare:
Epidemic vs. Pandemic
Remembering the "P" of a pandemic, which implies a pandemic has a visa, is an easy way to explain the distinction between a disease and a pandemic. A pandemic is a circulating disease.
Epidemic vs. Endemic
So what's the difference between an outbreak and an endemic outbreak? There is an ongoing outbreak of an epidemic; new disease reports greatly outweigh what is predicted. It is generally intended to characterize any issue that is out of reach, such as the drug crisis.
An epidemic is mostly located in an area, however there is a substantially greater than average number of those affected in that region. When COVID-19, for instance, was confined to Wuhan, China, it was an outbreak. The geographical extension converted it into a pandemic.
Endemics, on the other hand, in a single area are a continuous existence. Malaria in areas of Africa is endemic. In Antarctica, ice is endemic.
Endemic vs. Outbreak
Moving a step forward, an endemic will trigger an epidemic, and everywhere an outbreak can arise. Last summer's dengue fever epidemic in Hawaii is an example. Dengue fever is common in Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America. Mosquitoes bear dengue fever and spread it from person to person in these regions. But there was a dengue fever epidemic in Hawaii in 2019, where the illness is not widespread. An infected individual is presumed to have reached the Large Island and been attacked by mosquitoes there. The insects then transmitted the parasite and produced an epidemic to other people.
Can Coronavirus Turn from Pandemic to Endemic?
As reported in November, there is increasing concern among health experts that the novel coronavirus might become endemic within the United States in the coming years, amid ongoing vaccination efforts.
Dr. Pritish Tosh, an infectious disease doctor and Mayo Clinic expert, told USA Today that the virus could persist with time.
"It appears as though this virus is likely to remain endemic in populations at least for several years, possibly indefinitely," Tosh said.
In January, scientists from Emory University and Penn State University compared the novel coronavirus to four endemic common cold viruses. They discovered that continued coronavirus exposure might lead the virus to become endemic within the general population, especially among younger residents.
"The transition from epidemic to endemic dynamics is associated with a shift in the age distribution of primary infections to younger age groups, which in turn depends on how fast the virus spreads," according to the study.
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