Do you really know? What is an endemic?
Nov 6, 2025
Explore the concept of endemicity and how viruses like COVID-19 maintain a baseline presence in populations. Understand the implications of its cyclical nature, with diseases reemerging in seasonal waves. Delve into whether COVID-19 will become similar to other respiratory illnesses and the ongoing need for vaccine adaptations. Reflect on the wisdom of quickly dropping restrictions and the public health perspective on moving toward endemicity, emphasizing that this does not equate to less severity.
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What Endemic Means
- An infection is endemic when it stays at a maintained baseline in a population.
- Endemic status means the virus is more predictable and easier to monitor, not gone.
Endemic Varies By Place And Season
- Diseases can be endemic in some places and absent in others, like malaria.
- Endemic infections can still recur seasonally, as influenza does in winter.
COVID-19 May Become Seasonal Waves
- COVID-19 will likely return in waves and require variant-updated vaccines like the flu.
- New treatments should eventually allow care similar to other respiratory viral infections.