If we get to seven waves of COVID, will we have some special luck by that point? Will COVID come to an end, sort of, maybe? Or go on to endemic status, which the experts assure us does not mean it will be harmless. It will be predictable.
I found an analogy to describe epidemic vs endemic. "If you think of a disease as a regular-size KitKat bar, Baker says, and you open the package one day and there are six pieces instead of four, that candy bar is acting more like an epidemic (that is, a sudden spike of a disease that could lead to a pandemic if it spreads globally)."
""An epidemic means more cases than we expect," she explains. And if you unwrapped a KitKat bar to reveal six pieces, you'd know something was wrong — "it throws you off, you know something's happening," she says, just as you know that you can't count on things staying the same when there's an epidemic."
An endemic means that it has reached a steady state where it doesn't cause large outbreaks. So aren't we behaving like it is in an endemic stage? Thinking we can take off masks in indoor spaces as OMICRON isn't very severe?
How many waves did I expect? My guess was three or four. It was based on the 1918-20 pandemic - it had two (or three) phases with the later ones more severe.
There have been 10 outbreaks since 1889-92. The article and chart are HERE. And that article summarized how many waves were in each.
The last five outbreaks, since 1957-58, occurred in the space of two years;
Five outbreaks are described as having a second phase
The article says that "the theory of pandemics is murky" - and whether COVID would recur in phases or sporadic outbreaks, or even disappear altogether.
This is my personal idea of "waves"- daffodils. Like William Wordsworth:
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
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