Top virologist Dr Gagandeep Kang said on Monday that the coronavirus pandemic in the country may be heading towards endemic stage, adding that a third wave, if it does take place, is likely to be due to local flare-ups that would be smaller and spread wider across the country. Covid becoming an endemic would mean that infection will be more manageable and impart less strain on the health infrastructure, the report quoted Singh as saying.
Singh added that if the mortality and morbidity is under control, then the disease can be managed. It is worth noting that the endemic is a stage when a population learns to live with a virus and it is very different from the epidemic and can be predictable. Reports also said that a new variant alone cannot bring the third wave of coronavirus, which will start to become an endemic in the next six months, said Sujeet Singh, director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). The expert said that even though the coronavirus pandemic has defied most predictions, it will reach an endemic status in the next six months. Explaining further, the experts said that there have been several endemic diseases, such as influenza. But there can also be a pandemic layered on top of an epidemic disease. Thus, if there is a new variant, which totally escapes the immune response, there could be yet another pandemic. However, that doesn’t mean that SARS-CoV-2 is only a pandemic, and has stopped being endemic.
