U.S. Officials Say That COVID Is Transitioning From Pandemic To Endemic Phase

In March 2020, the World Health Organization officially announced that we were in a worldwide pandemic. In March 2022, the pandemic is still with us, and it seems that Covid-19 will never be gone for good.

That doesn’t mean that Covid-19 will always be a global pandemic. Instead, we are moving to the next phase, the endemic phase. In case you’re not clear on the difference between a pandemic and an endemic, the main difference is that a pandemic spreads rapidly with case numbers rising rapidly as well; however, an endemic is when a disease is more predictable and controllable.

A perfect example of an endemic is the seasonal flu. Every year there’s cold and flu season. It’s always with us, but it’s manageable. Doctors can prepare for it and anticipate approximately how many cases they will see in the hospital. That’s where Covid is heading.

According to Dr. Daniel McQuillen, the president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, “We’re going from trying to prevent disease completely to going more to how do we deal with preventing severe illness and hospitalizations and how do we prevent our health care system from getting so swamped that we can’t take care of even normal problems.”

During his state of the union address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said, “Covid-19 no longer need control our lives.” That means we’re heading to a new normal that’s closer to our old normal.

The White House Covid Task Force held their first in-person meeting in over a year. They are planning for this next endemic phase, and it appears that it is in the near future.

Watch the video below to learn more about how America is transitioning from Covid as a pandemic to an endemic.

Do you feel safe going back to a somewhat normal way of life? Do you typically wear a face mask when you go into a public place? Do you think airlines, buses and other means of public transportation should continue to require passengers to wear face masks? Do you think there will be another Covid variant this summer?