{"id":619133,"date":"2023-03-17T17:49:30","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T22:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/17\/its-finally-time-to-stop-calling-it-a-pandemic-experts\/"},"modified":"2023-03-17T17:49:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T22:49:30","slug":"its-finally-time-to-stop-calling-it-a-pandemic-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/17\/its-finally-time-to-stop-calling-it-a-pandemic-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s (Finally) Time to Stop Calling It a Pandemic: Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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March 17, 2023 — It’s been 3 years since the World Health Organization <\/span>officially declared<\/span><\/a> the COVID-19 emergency a pandemic. Now, with health systems no longer overwhelmed and more than a year of no surprise variants, many infectious disease experts are declaring a shift in the crisis from pandemic to endemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Endemic, broadly, means the virus and its patterns are predictable and steady in designated regions. But not all experts agree that we\u2019re there yet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eric Topol, MD,\u00a0founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute\u00a0in La Jolla, CA, and editor in chief of Medscape, WebMD\u2019s sister site for health professionals,\u00a0said it\u2019s time to call COVID endemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

He wrote in his Substack, <\/span>Ground Truth<\/span><\/a>, that all indications — from\u00a0<\/span>genomic surveillance of the virus<\/span><\/a> to\u00a0<\/span>wastewater<\/span><\/a> to clinical\u00a0<\/span>outcomes that are still being tracked<\/span><\/a> —\u00a0point to a new reality: \u201c[W]e\u2019ve (finally) entered an endemic phase. \u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

No new SARS-CoV-2 variants have yet emerged with a growth advantage over XBB.1.5, which is\u00a0<\/span>dominant throughout much of the world<\/span><\/a>, or XBB.1.9.1, wrote Topol.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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But he has two concerns. One is the number of daily hospitalizations and deaths \u2013 hovering at near 26,000 and 350, respectively, according to <\/span>The New York Times<\/span><\/i> COVID tracker<\/span><\/a>. That\u2019s far more than the daily number of deaths in a severe flu season.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is far beyond (double) where we were in June 2021,\u201d he wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n

Topol\u2019s second concern is the chance that a new family of virus might evolve that is even more infectious or lethal \u2013 or both \u2013 than the recent Omicron variants.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three Reasons to Call It Endemic<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

William Schaffner, MD, infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, is in the endemic camp as well for three reasons.<\/p>\n

First, he said, \u201cWe have very high population immunity. We\u2019re no longer seeing huge surges, but we\u2019re seeing ongoing smoldering transmission.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, though noting the concerning numbers of daily deaths and hospitalizations, Schaffner said, \u201cit\u2019s no longer causing crises in health care or, beyond that, into the community economically and socially anymore.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cNumber three, the variants causing illness are Omicron and its progeny, the Omicron subvariants. And whether because of population immunity or because they are inherently less virulent, they are causing milder disease,\u201d Schaffner said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Changing societal norms are also a sign the U.S. is moving on, he said. \u201cLook around. People are behaving endemically.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

They’re shedding masks, gathering in crowded spaces, and shrugging off additional vaccines, \u201cwhich implies a certain tolerance of this infection. We tolerate the flu,\u201d he noted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Schaffner said he would limit his scope of where COVID is endemic or close to endemic to the developed world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m more cautious about the developing world because our surveillance system there isn\u2019t as good,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He added a caveat to his endemic enthusiasm, conceding that a highly virulent new variant that can resist current vaccines could torpedo endemic status.<\/span><\/p>\n

No Huge Peaks<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to go with we\u2019re endemic,\u201d said Dennis Cunningham, MD, system medical director of infection prevention\u00a0of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m using the definition that we know there\u2019s disease in the population. It occurs regularly at a consistent rate. In Michigan, we\u2019re no longer having those huge peaks of cases,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cunningham said though the deaths from COVID are disturbing, \u201cI would call cardiovascular disease endemic in this country and we have far more than a few hundred deaths a day from that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He also noted that vaccines have resulted in high levels of control of the disease in terms of reducing hospitalizations and deaths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The discussion really becomes an academic argument, Cunningham said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEven if we call it endemic, it\u2019s still a serious virus that\u2019s really putting a lot of a strain on our health care system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Not So Fast<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

But not everyone is ready to go all-in with \u201cendemic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Stuart Ray, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, said any endemic designation would be specific to a certain area.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe don\u2019t have much information about what\u2019s happening in China, so I don\u2019t know that we can say what state they\u2019re in, for example,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Information in the U.S. is incomplete as well, Ray said, noting that while home testing in the U.S. has been a great tool, it has made true case counts difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur visibility on the number of infections in the United States has, understandably, been degraded by home testing. We have to use other means to glean what\u2019s happening with COVID,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people with infections we don\u2019t know about and something from that dynamic could surprise us,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are also a growing number of young people who have not yet had COVID, and with low vaccination rates among young people, \u201cwe might see spikes in infections again,\u201d Ray said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why No Official Endemic Declaration?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Some question why endemic hasn\u2019t been declared by the WHO or CDC.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Ray said health authorities tend to declare emergencies, but are slower to make pronouncements that an emergency has ended if they make one at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

President Joe Biden set <\/span>May 11 as the end<\/span><\/a> of the COVID emergency declaration in the U.S. after extending the deadline several times. The emergency status allowed\u00a0millions to receive free tests, vaccines, and treatments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ray said we will only truly know when the endemic started retrospectively.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJust like I think we\u2019ll look back at March 9 and say that Baltimore is out of winter. But there may be a storm that will surprise me,\u201d he aid.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not Enough Time to Know<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, PhD, MPH, director of population health analytics at the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute in Dallas, and a senior scientific consultant to the CDC, said we haven\u2019t had enough time with COVID to call it endemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

For influenza, she said, which is endemic, \u201cIt\u2019s predictable and we know when we\u2019ll have waves.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But COVID has too many unknowns, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

What we do know is that moving to endemic does not mean an end to the suffering, said Jetelina, who also publishes a Substack called\u00a0<\/span>Your Local Epidemiologist<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe see that with malaria and [tuberculosis] and flu. There\u2019s going to be suffering,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Public expectations for tolerating illness and death with COVID are still widely debated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have a metric for what is an acceptable level of mortality for an endemic. It\u2019s defined more by our culture and our values and what we do end up accepting,” she said. “That\u2019s why we\u2019re seeing this tug of war between urgency and normalcy. We\u2019re deciding where we place SARS-CoV-2 in our repertoire of threats.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0She said in the U.S., people don\u2019t know what these waves are going to look like — whether they will be seasonal or whether people can expect a summer wave in the South again or whether another variant of concern will come out of nowhere.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI can see a future where (COVID) is not a big deal in certain countries that have such high immunity through vaccinations and other places where it remains a crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe all hope we\u2019re inching toward the endemic phase, but who knows? SARS-CoV-2 has taught me to approach it with humility,” Jetelina said. “We don\u2019t ultimately know what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

<\/nossr><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Anthony Michaud<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 17, 2023 — It’s been 3 years since the World Health Organization officially declared the COVID-19 emergency a pandemic. Now, with health systems no longer overwhelmed and more than a year of no surprise variants, many infectious disease experts are declaring a shift in the crisis from pandemic to endemic.Endemic, broadly, means the virus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":619134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[981,848],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-619133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calling","8":"category-finally"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}