Mayo Clinic: COVID-19 heading toward endemic
FILE - Nurse Marie-Laure Satta pauses during her New Year's Eve shift in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at the la Timone hospital in Marseille, southern France, Friday, Dec. 31, 2021. The official global death toll from COVID-19 is on the verge of eclipsing 6 million — underscoring that the pandemic, now in its third year, is far from over. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)
Two years after COVID-19 swept the globe and was declared a pandemic, outbreaks are waning again.
While COVID-19 is still a pandemic, Americans may start becoming familiar with a new word: endemic.
Hubbard Broadcasting sister station KAAL-TV spoke with Mayo Clinic officials, who said COVID-19 is on its way to becoming endemic.
“There is going to be a need for some sort of periodic vaccination. It’s something where we’re likely to see new variants,” Dr. Jack O’Horo, an infectious disease expert at Mayo Clinic, told KAAL.
Experts say there will likely be some variation in mitigation strategies, which could also fluctuate based on different surges.
“Just because it’s safe to take off a mask three counties over in one setting, doesn’t mean it’s safe to do the same in this county,” O’Horo said.
Mayo Clinic did tell KAAL that COVID-19 could reach the endemic phase and then move back into a pandemic again.