Is the World Still in a Pandemic? The Answer May Surprise You.

Not one day goes by that I don’t get asked one of the two following questions: 1.) Are we still in a pandemic (this is the easy question, and the answer is “yes”), and 2.) Why, with all of the tools we have at hand to fight Covid, have we not officially called an end to the pandemic? The latter question is the hard one to answer.
While certain conditions were met in March 2020 for the World Health Organization to declare a global pandemic – essentially, a global disease outbreak that occurs when a virus for which there is little or no immunity in the human population begins to cause serious illness and then spreads easily person-to-person worldwide – there are no official criteria in place to place reliance on in declaring a pandemic to be at an end. In fact, the end of a pandemic such as this one will unquestionably be determined in hindsight, not in real time.
While pandemics lead to large-scale social disruption, economic loss, and general hardship, the presence of these factors does not a pandemic define.
However, people may get tired of living in fear, and learn to live in a world with the disease. This is considered a social ending, which is not an actual end to the pandemic since the disease itself doesn’t go away. In this scenario, the virus may continue to spread, possibly unabated, which in turn can delay the medical end.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization said it was ringing “the alarm bell” and declared that the novel coronavirus was officially a pandemic after reports of more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries and 4,291 deaths.
The remarks of WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that day inform us about what is – and isn’t – a pandemic and bear repetition:
“Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.
“Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed by this virus. It doesn’t change what WHO is doing, and it doesn’t change what countries should do.”
“We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus. This is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus.”
Ghebreyesus went on to point out that the world has never seen a pandemic that could be controlled.
So there. A resounding “yes” is about as good of an answer as I or anyone without a working Futurescope device can provide right now, and it will have to suffice for the time being.
Any questions?
(Photo: Accura Media Group)