California is the first U.S. state to treat COVID as an endemic but are we there yet? ABC7 News explains the difference between a pandemic, epidemic and endemic.
SAN FRANCIS -- As California becomes the first U.S. state to adopt an"endemic" approach to COVID-19, we take a closer look at what becoming"endemic" means and if virus levels have truly transitioned in our communities.defines endemic as"the constant presence of an agent or health condition within a given geographic area or population".
Four infectious disease experts interviewed told ABC7 News in San Francisco that they believe the SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay. Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases doctor and Professor of Medicine at UCSF says endemicity means bringing it down to a controllable phase."The end game is really bringing down the virus to low levels where we just live with it."It doesn't mean COVID becomes less infectious nor does it mean it gets eradicated.
UCSF's Chair of the Department of Medicine, Dr. Robert Wachter expects infections to fall and community immunity levels to rise from a combination of vaccinations, antiviral medication and omicron infections.If you're on the ABC7 News app,"In the next few weeks, we expect that the numbers are going to start to drop off pretty soon in California, and there's evidence that that's happening elsewhere also.
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