‘Pandemic vs endemic’ sets up two conflicting Covid endgames – Financial Times

Tim Colbourn, professor of global health epidemiology at University College London, said “many politicians don’t know what endemic means” even if “there’s a case for saying the worst is over”. He said: “It doesn’t mean severity will get lower. Endemic usually implies a steady state of equilibrium without large peaks, so we’re not really there yet. You could argue the politicians saying so are engaging in wishful thinking.”

Nelson Lee, public health professor at the University of Toronto, predicted Covid would not become “a disease that’s constantly occurring in a community” and instead would surge once or twice a year, similar to the way the flu virus behaved. “It will be like an epidemic. It will come and go depending on the evolution of the virus versus the combined immunity of the population.”

However coronavirus plays out, scientists agree the pandemic endgame will arrive eventually. “It’s pretty important to give an idea there’s light at the end of the tunnel and that pandemics don’t last for ever,” Balloux said.

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