At this level, public well being officers typically agree that COVID is endemic, which means it’s right here to remain in predictable methods.
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Peter Zelei Pictures/Getty Pictures
At this level, public well being officers typically agree that COVID is endemic, which means it’s right here to remain in predictable methods.
Peter Zelei Pictures/Getty Pictures
U.S. well being officers now say COVID-19 is an endemic illness. Meaning it is right here to remain – circulating usually just like the flu. Although that modifications how public well being officers take into consideration managing the virus, they are saying it doesn’t suggest being much less cautious or vigilant throughout surges, just like the present one this summer time. COVID nonetheless poses important dangers for older people and people with underlying situations — and anybody who will get COVID is prone to growing lengthy COVID.
Ashish Jha is the dean of the Brown College Faculty of Public Well being who served as President Biden’s COVID-19 response coordinator. He encourages individuals to to do what they’ll to guard themselves.
“If we simply say OK, ‘Studying to dwell with it means we’re simply going to let it do what it is doing,’ the burden on our society goes to be very excessive,” he says. “We’ll see, you already know, a majority of People get contaminated yearly. We’ll see quite a lot of older People die unnecessarily … We will do higher. And we must always demand and anticipate that we do higher than that.”
Individuals can shield themselves and others by masking in crowded areas and round high-risk people and getting up to date vaccines – just like the up to date one the FDA is anticipated to greenlight later this week.
Learn extra of science correspondent Rob Stein‘s story right here.
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This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson, edited by Rebecca Ramirez and fact-checked by Rob Stein. The audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez.