Epidemic, Pandemic, Endemic.....Oh My!

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

Sort of to be sung like the old Wizard of Oz tune "Lions and tigers and Bears Oh My!" And back to that in a minute.

A comment was mad in another thread in which the poster suggested that Covid -19 had moved from pandemic status to endemic status. Another poster asked for explanation and the first adroitly avoided answering, This got me thinking about definitions and I went looking for the answer.  I went to my best lay-mans source Google Scholar and asked the question "At what point does a pandemic become endemic?" Here's what I found and perhaps the mods can help me with the hyperlinks as they never seem to work for me.

According to the World Health Organization  (WHO) and the CDC both Define an epidemic as:  an unexpected increase in the number of disease cases in a specific geographical area. Yellow fever, smallpox, measles, and polio are prime examples of epidemics that occurred throughout American history.

Notably, an epidemic disease doesn't necessarily have to be contagious. For example, West Nile fever and the rapid increase in obesity rates are also considered epidemics.

In broader terms, epidemics can refer to a disease or other specific health-related behavior (e.g., smoking) with rates that are clearly above the expected occurrence in a community or region."

 A Pandemic as: "when a disease’s growth is exponential. This means growth rate skyrockets, and each day cases grow more than the day prior.

In being declared a pandemic, the virus has nothing to do with virology, population immunity, or disease severity. It means a virus covers a wide area, affecting several countries and populations."

and finally and endemic as: a disease outbreak that is consistently present but limited to a particular region. This makes the disease spread and rates predictable. Malaria, for example, is considered an endemic in certain countries and regions.

So in simple terms a pandemic does not become an endemic when it still occurs world wide. 

In any case what we call it doesn't really matter as just like Dorothy's Lions and tigers and bears..... Covid -19 can kill you just the same. 

Hope this information helps!

Epidemic, endemic, pandemic: What are the differences? Search the website. (2021, February 19). Retrieved January 20, 2022, from https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/epidemic-endemic-pandemic-what-are-differences

Hppy

 

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

Makes you wonder if COVID could ever become endemic because what would keep it regionalized to a certain area? Certainly malaria is specific because the carrier is a tropical insect, so it would never take hold in other areas. But the carriers with COVID are people and it's been more widespread than almost any other viral outbreak in history. Is it just going to become like the flu and some people will come down with it every year? If it continues to increase in contagion but decrease in virulence I think the hope would be that one day it is no more of a public health threat than that. 

I did find an interesting article on Live Science with the deadliest viruses in history. (The deadliest viruses in history | Live Science- I can never get address links to paste)  HIV is still one of the biggest viral killers in world history, but fortunately science has made great strides in keeping people healthy.