CDC defines influenza as an epidemic disease. Even though it has been around for ages, and is never truly gone from the earth, it comes and goes in waves. COVID-19 will likely be similar.
Endemic illness stays at a constant level roughly.
I don’t think you can just decide to call something endemic at an arbitrary point in time… it has to show some characteristics of steady rate of disease.
I hope we don’t chose to allow COVID-19 to be at very high endemic levels, or have large epidemics. Would be better if it was sporadic outbreaks. Much safer.
In fact, even at high “endemic” levels there is evidence of epidemic outbreaks of different strains emerging and outcompeting each other…
Things endemic doesn’t mean…
Mild.
Everything will be alright.
You can’t control it.
Back to normal.
“This vision will be achieved progressively by countries eliminating malaria from their territories and implementing effective measures to prevent re-establishment of transmission.”
Sound familiar?
End TB strategy.
Endemic to many parts of the world, according to WHO, TB should be eliminated.
Each of these diseases is different, and needs different strategies.
TB is airborne slow, latent, hidden, has animal reservoirs. Vaccine partially effective.
Malaria, insect borne but no animal reservoir.
Chicken pox, airborne but vaccine susceptible.
We have not let “endemic” get in the way of planning disease control before, and despite difficulties, infectious disease specialists haven’t thrown the towel in before.
The word endemic has been used inappropriately to mean the public should stop harassing the government.
COVID-19 is still an epidemic disease in most countries.
It is a serious multi system disease, and requires control.
Declaring it “endemic” makes absolutely no difference to that.
If your government or medical officer is telling you that your country/region has endemic SARS… just say “Yes, and what is the plan to control it?”
Because that’s the normal response to a serious endemic disease.
I am so glad that I am not the only one that can see this.
Endemic COVID-19 is a mess.
Just because a disease is endemic, does not mean you can forget about controlling it. It will mess up the economy whether you like it or not.
Do other colds, flus and similar viruses cause problems with the brain, heart, gut, autoimmunity etc?
Yes.
But they are already baked in to our baseline statistics, and COVID doesn’t just add to this in a simple way. It’s synergising… it’s causing its own impact and facilitating others.
The best analogy I can come up with is that we had a curry, it had lots of different flavours of problems, and then we added two heaped tablespoons of chilli to it…
It’s affected the whole mix.
Sometimes people discuss “virus interference”… with one virus priming the immune system, so another virus meets us with our defences already up… thus causing a less severe illness…
However C19 has a medium to long term negative impact overall.
“Why do you care if XEC is here? You just wear a respirator and carry on as normal.”
“Why do I care? Maybe because all of the kids under the age of five are completely unprotected from it… ->
Maybe because all of the elderly are wandering about without a mask on now because they either think they have robust hybrid immunity, or their doctor doesn’t wear one so they won’t either…
Maybe because I need people too… not just socially, but literally… I can’t run the universe… it’s actually quite hard when everyone is sick…
When they said c19 would become seasonal, they weren’t referring to human behaviour in the context of varying climate/weather conditions leading to complex epidemics continuously worldwide.
They meant once a year in winter and just like all the other colds.
I can’t tell you all the details because I’m am running between day job and evening taxi service for kids…. BUT
SAFER INDOOR AIR IS COMING AUSTRALIA!
#auspol
Key players… you all know Prof Sutton left CHO Vic position to go to CSIRO?
Well he’s been beavering away over there collating all current evidence.
Importantly ->
Dr Michelle Ananda-Rajah said that there is a need to find “a road to implementation” and that the consensus is that there is enough evidence to start working on this *now*.