'Endemic': What does it mean and are we heading in its direction?

For nearly two years, we’ve lived life under the cloud of the COVID-19 pandemic, but as we near the marking of that milestone, there’s another word that’s coming up more and more in conversation -- 'endemic.'

“I’ve seen a lot of people using the term endemic,” says Dr. Christopher Labos, an epidemiologist and cardiologist. “The problem is, different people seem to be using it for different reasons, and everyone seems to think it means something different.”

Labos says the word endemic simply means that infections are stable -- not that it’s less dangerous or that public health restrictions are required -- but with that definition in mind, are we heading in that direction, as some have been suggesting?

“It’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s not necessarily true,” says Labos.

“That presumes that the virus is not going to have these seasonal cyclical variations, which of course, it always could have. And that presumes that we aren’t going to have new variants, which of course, there always could be.”

As we think about the future of COVID-19, it could be helpful to look for lessons in the past, including in the case of the Spanish Flu pandemic, which broke out in 1918, but dragged on into 1920.

Esyltt Jones, a professor and infectious disease historian, says at that point, people were tired of restrictions and the climate of fear.

“We do know that there were much more limited public health interventions in 1920, even though the flu was still quite deadly, and I think we want to avoid that,” says Jones.

“Finding an ending is what we’re all looking for at the moment, but I’m not sure it’s going to be that clear cut.”