An endemic infection can be both widespread and deadly. Malaria kills 600 thousand people a year, Tuberculosis is considered endemic. Smallpox was endemic until it was stamped out. The number of people that can be infected balances out the reproduction number. There may be other physical barrer, for example, that stop the spread.
The word endemic is often mistakenly used to describe a rosy end to the pandemic where COVID-19 becomes a mild, but ever-present infection akin to the common cold. But this is by no means guaranteed and the reality could be much less favourable. In this episode of Coronapod we get the evolutionary virologist's take - asking what endemicity might really look like, and what control we still have in shaping the future of SARS-CoV-2.World View: COVID-19: endemic doesn’t mean harmlessSubscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.
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