When a virus becomes endemic, it is never eliminated or eradicated.
The expectation that COVID-19 will become endemic essentially means that the pandemic will not end with the virus disappearing; instead, the optimistic view is that enough people will gain immune protection from vaccination and from natural infection such that there will be less transmission and much less COVID-19-related hospitalization and death, even as the virus continues to circulate.
What will it be like when COVID-19 becomes endemic?
In a Q&A, Yonatan Grad, Melvin J. and Geraldine L. Glimcher Associate Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, discusses what endemic COVID-19 will look like.
www.hsph.harvard.edu