I wondered how the pandemic might end. So I went looking for the words ending with "demic". I thought the variations on "demic" might describe the probable scenarios. For example, an interpandemic? These occur between outbreaks of a pandemic. An interepidemic? Occurring between epidemics.
Could we end with a hyperendemic? A disease which is constantly and persistently present in a population at a high rate of incidence and/or prevalence and which equally affects all age groups of that population.
Where I landed, though, is this term: Syndemic. The Lancet has a number of articles outlining COVID-19 not a pandemic but a syndemic, also known as synergistic epidemic. This doesn't go so well towards a happy sort of conclusion.
"A syndemic is a situation in which two or more interrelated biological factors work together to make a disease or health crisis worse. The term syndemic was created by medical anthropologist Merrill Singer in the early 1990s."
"Syndemics are stitched together by three rules: two or more diseases cluster together in time or space; these diseases interact in meaningful ways, whether social, psychological, or biological; and harmful social conditions drive these interactions."
“COVID-19 is an acute-on-chronic health emergency,” said Richard Horton, the Lancet’s editor-in-chief. He described the coronavirus pandemic combined with high global rates of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases as a “syndemic ... Addressing COVID-19 means addressing hypertension, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, and cancer." That article is HERE.
An historical perspective on Syndemic theory, methods and data is HERE. What it describes is how the pandemic moves through a number of the "fault lines" that "drive the greater occurrence of COVID-19".
We witness this in the anti-vaxx movement in the U.S. and Canada: "where those who believed they were protected from infection—by their race, class, health, or politics—rejected masks, social distancing guidelines, or vaccines (Adolph et al., 2021). In these ways, COVID-19 has become syndemic in different high- and low-income settings."
So I had started off my morning by wondering if there were little waves and bigger waves. Such an optimistic view as now I find out there are intersecting waves which are more complicated. That does start to explain how difficult this experience is for the individual, society, and countries.
I consider this a very pretty picture today. This is Randolph's front garden in May photographed with multiple exposures in-camera. Isn't this so dreamy. Pretty Money Plant (Lunaria) flowers with all those shades of spring green.
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