The infectious disease ‘outbreaks’ or ‘epidemics’ or ‘pandemics’ share a fate — there is a day when the majority of them run their course and fade away. However, a small proportion (of epidemics or pandemics) transitions to the stage of endemicity, i.e., a level of transmission which is not considered to be a major concern by the public or health authorities. It has been 29 months since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. However, new COVID-19 cases are still continuing to be reported from different parts of the world, including India, on a regular basis. In fact, the numbers of daily new COVID-19 cases in many countries are more than what had been reported at the peak of the national waves in those countries before the emergence of Omicron as a variant of concern. However, the severity of COVID-19 infections is low and the burden of health services due to intensive care unit and hospital admission even lower. COVID-19 vaccination coverage is increasing and, in many countries, COVID-19 related restrictions have either been removed completely or relaxed to a large extent.
Much opinion
After the third wave in January 2022, India saw the lowest number of daily new COVID-19 cases in March and April this year. However, since then, daily cases have spiked to around 18,000 a day. In fact, in the last two months every rise and fall in daily cases in India revives the discussion on whether COVID-19 continues to remain pandemic or has become endemic. Yet, consensus is missing. Part of the reason is that the discourse is dominated by opinion and there has been insufficient attention on an objective assessment of what constitutes the endemic stage or endemicity.
