We’re Not at Endemicity Yet
No one knows exactly what endemic COVID will look like, but whatever it looks like, this—gestures at the current situation—ain’t it. COVID is not yet endemic. There is little doubt that the coronavirus will get there eventually, when almost everyone has been vaccinated or infected or both, but right now we are still living through a messy and potentially volatile transition period. Cases are ticking up again. A new variant is afoot. The challenge ahead is figuring out how to manage the transition to endemicity, however long it takes.
COVID is not yet endemic because too many people still lack any immunity from either vaccination or infection, here in the United States and globally. Europe is a cautionary tale in this regard: Countries such as Germany and Austria that have slightly better vaccination coverage than the U.S.—, respectively, compared with here—are nevertheless seeing their cases and hospitalizations soar in yet another wave. Even with most people vaccinated, there isn’t enough immunity to blunt big and who could still be hospitalized for COVID in Europe based on each country’s age structure. (He is planning to do a similar analysis for the U.S.) “The main headline point would be that,” he says, “there’s still a long way to go.” And that was before Omicron. The new variant could be than Delta, and its spread might push endemicity further off into the future.
