Covid-19 marches toward endemic status in US as Omicron spreads
Live MintThe Omicron variant’s aggressive advance is the latest twist in the course of a disease that public-health experts say is on a path toward becoming endemic in the U.S. “I don’t think there’s going to be a day where the whole thing feels over," said Joshua Schiffer, an associate professor in the vaccine and infectious disease division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. But even at far higher levels of death and transmission than are typical for the flu, public-health experts say Covid-19’s spread will likely settle into a pattern predictable enough to be considered endemic. How the virus continues to mutate, how durable the immune response from prior infection and vaccination proves, and how proactively governments address Covid-19 will all influence society’s enduring relationship with the virus, public-health experts said.