COVID-19 Will Always Be An Epidemic Virus And The Next Variant May Be Worse Than The Last, Scientists Say

The COVID-19 virus will always be an epidemic virus, not an endemic, and the following variant could be much more contagious than Omicron, scientists and health officials say.

Is it a pandemic, epidemic or endemic? These terms all mean something different regarding disease outbreaks. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), when an outbreak is called an epidemic, “there has been a sudden increase in disease cases.” A pandemic is when there is “a sudden increase in cases spreading through several countries or continents or the world,” World Health Forum says. And an endemic is when a “disease is constantly present in a certain population or region, with relatively low spread (or there may be periods when it doesn’t affect people at all, if it is only present in the environment).”

With COVID-19 continually speaking and creating new variants, world health officials and scientists say the virus will more than likely behave as an epidemic, with possibly no chance of it ever being an endemic.

“If case numbers do change [with an endemic disease], it is slowly, typically over years,” said Raina MacIntyre, a professor of global biosecurity at the University of New South Wales in Sydney said in an email to CNBC. “Epidemic diseases, on the other hand, rise rapidly over periods of days to weeks.”

“Covid will not magically turn into a malaria-like endemic infection where levels stay constant for long periods,” she continued in the email. “It will keep causing epidemic waves, driven by waning vaccine immunity, new variants that escape vaccine protection, unvaccinated pockets, births and migration.” Because the COVID-19 virus will continue, she says this is why “why we need an ongoing ‘vaccine-plus’ and ventilation strategy.”