{"id":2661,"date":"2023-02-19T09:05:37","date_gmt":"2023-02-19T15:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=2661"},"modified":"2023-02-19T09:05:41","modified_gmt":"2023-02-19T15:05:41","slug":"when-is-a-pandemic-no-longer-a-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/02\/19\/when-is-a-pandemic-no-longer-a-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"When Is a Pandemic No Longer a Pandemic?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

(Bloomberg Prognosis<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes a pandemic a pandemic?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When will the Covid pandemic no longer be considered a pandemic? Does it get downgraded to epidemic at some point? JB, Fullerton, California<\/em>

Today\u2019s Q&A is a lesson in the vocabulary of epidemiology, with some assistance from our regular expert on the subject, Katrine Wallace<\/a> at University of Illinois at Chicago. 

\u201cPandemic, epidemic and endemic are all terms used to describe level of disease spread,\u201d Wallace says.

A disease reaches epidemic status when there are more cases of it over time than you\u2019d normally expect in a given location. When there are epidemics in multiple places \u2014 potentially impacting large swaths of the global population \u2014 that\u2019s a pandemic. 

\u201dA pandemic is typically caused by a situation where we have little or no immunity and a rapidly spreading disease,\u201d Wallace says. That could be a new disease (like Covid), or one that has mutated to become more contagious. It could also be a disease that\u2019s made a comeback after a period of control. 

Endemic diseases are those that stick around. 
 
\u201cAn epidemic disease level could be downgraded to an endemic level in a population if the number of new cases becomes consistently present, as expected in the population without significant fluctuations,\u201d Wallace says.

The real question, then, is whether \u2014 or when \u2014 Covid will be considered endemic. 

Though fewer people are getting sick than a year ago, there\u2019s still a significant amount of Covid transmission. The virus also hasn\u2019t established a clear seasonal pattern, like we see with influenza.

\u201cThese things make it difficult to know exactly what that \u2018expected\u2019 level of disease will eventually be,\u201d Wallace says. \u201cAlso, the risk of (sometimes serious) post-viral complications exists with Covid, and we don\u2019t have that risk with other respiratory viruses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Covid establishes a more predictable rhythm, health officials can better prepare for outbreaks because they\u2019ll know when to distribute vaccinations and take other measures. Recently President Joe Biden announced we\u2019re moving toward a single annual Covid booster, though we\u2019re still getting a sense of whether that matches the behavior of the disease.

\u201cIt definitely remains to be seen what additional tricks the virus has in store for us,\u201d Wallace says. \u2014 Kristen V. Brown<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Bloomberg Prognosis) What makes a pandemic a pandemic? When will the Covid pandemic no longer be considered a pandemic? Does it get downgraded to epidemic at some point? JB, Fullerton, California Today\u2019s Q&A is a lesson in the vocabulary of epidemiology, with some assistance from our regular expert on the subject, Katrine Wallace at University of Illinois at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"@Bloomberg asks what is #pandemic vs #epidemic vs #endemic Where are we now? #covid19 ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emerging-infectious-diseases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2662,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2661\/revisions\/2662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}