In India, the COVID might enter the endemic stage soon unless a new variant surprises us, a noted virologist commented. He further added, the possibility of endemic cannot be counted unless the country shows low and stable numbers of COVID-19 cases for four straight weeks. This comes at a time when the third wave of COVID-19 is plateauing in India. For the last nine days, the daily COVID tally has remained below 1 lakh.
“When case numbers in a community are plotted on graphs, the pattern of rise, peak and fall represent epidemic (or outbreak) and case numbers as a horizontal steady state are called endemic. When an epidemic pattern repeats, we call each a wave," Dr T Jacob John, former director of the Indian Council for Medical Research's Centre of Advanced Research in Virology, told news agency PTI
"So unless we see four weeks of low and stable numbers with only minor fluctuations, we cannot call the valley as endemic just as yet," John asserted.
Is India entering the endemic stage?
Noting that the Omicron receding fast in India, John said that the endemic stage might come soon unless another variant surprises us.
"Omicron wave is receding so fast that in a few more days we may reach the valley, but we will wait for four weeks to be sure of endemic prevalence," he said.
"My intelligent guess: we will slip into an endemic phase for many months without any more waves with Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta or Omicron. It will be most unlikely that yet another variant that will spread faster than Omicron and more efficient in immune evasion that Delta or Omicron will emerge," John said.
"However, just as Omicron surprised us, another weird variant could surprise us yet again," he warned.
John also said that during the endemic phase, some will be infected, sick, hospitalised and even die.
We will have to learn to live with COVID
However, another expert pointed out that it is of limited relevance from the perspective of the general public whether COVID-19 has become endemic in India or not. He further asserted that we will have to learn to live with the virus.
“This is a discourse which will continue for a while. From the perspective of interventional epidemiology, which focuses on operational solutions, India soon, in a few weeks, would be at a stage where everything should be fully open," Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, a physician-epidemiologist and executive director of the Delhi-based Foundation for People-Centric Health Systems told PTI.
"That point onwards, people would have to adapt to the new way of living with the virus depending upon their level of risk. But because of COVID-19 nothing should be stopped," Lahariya added.
Lahariya said pandemics end with a socio-political consensus to arrive at an agreement of what a society would like to call endemic.
"What is important to remember is that pandemics start with a pathogen. In this case, due to the virus. They end with a socio-political consensus to arrive at an agreement of what a society would like to call endemic. Therefore, when a setting reaches endemicity is not going to be a binary of pandemic or endemic," he said.
(With inputs from agencies)
