What Does Endemic Actually Mean?
When people use a word like endemic to mean whatever they want, it lets us dodge the more important questions, like what we’re going to do about it.
It’s been nearly a month and a half since California became the first state to officially adopt a policy for COVID-19 as an “endemic” disease. But even at the time, Gov. Gavin Newsom didn’t really explain how it was determined that Omicron was now endemic or even what that actually meant in practical terms, especially when Omicron BA.2 cases may be threatening another COVID bump, albeit less than those of Delta or Omicron BA.1.
Armchair epidemiologists have been saying on social media for months that COVID is or soon will be endemic, but many of them seem to think that means COVID has become less dangerous and that we stop efforts to control the spread of it.
Instead, as Kent State University epidemiologist Tara Smith told me, endemic simply means “something we’re stuck with.” That is, COVID will “remain with us for the foreseeable future, and we can (roughly) predict the number of cases and deaths it will cause in a year’s time.” But that doesn’t tell us what we should, or shouldn’t, do about it.
