The CDC says COVID is endemic. That doesn’t mean the danger is past : Short Wave – NPR

At this point, public health officials generally agree that COVID is endemic, meaning it is here to stay in predictable ways. Peter Zelei Images/Getty Images hide caption

At this point, public health officials generally agree that COVID is endemic, meaning it is here to stay in predictable ways.

U.S. health officials now say COVID-19 is an endemic disease. That means it's here to stay circulating regularly like the flu. Even though that changes how public health officials think about managing the virus, they say it doesn't mean being less cautious or vigilant during surges, like the current one this summer. COVID still poses significant risks for older individuals and those with underlying conditions and anyone who gets COVID is at risk of developing long COVID.

Ashish Jha is the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health who served as President Biden's COVID-19 response coordinator. He encourages people to to do what they can to protect themselves.

"If we just say OK, 'Learning to live with it means we're just going to let it do what it's doing,' the burden on our society is going to be very high," he says. "We're going to see, you know, a majority of Americans get infected every year. We're going to see a lot of older Americans die unnecessarily ... We can do better. And we should demand and expect that we do better than that."

People can protect themselves and others by masking in crowded spaces and around high-risk individuals and getting updated vaccines like the updated one the FDA is expected to greenlight later this week.

Read more of science correspondent Rob Stein's story here.

Interested in hearing more health news? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

Listen to Short Wave on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson, edited by Rebecca Ramirez and fact-checked by Rob Stein. The audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez.

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The CDC says COVID is endemic. That doesn't mean the danger is past : Short Wave - NPR