According to historian Jacob Steere-Williams, what endemicity means has evolved since the 19th century and the desire to label COVID-19 as being endemic in early 2022 was a political and cultural phenomenon connected to a desire to see the pandemic as being over. There is no single agreed definition of what it means for COVID-19 to become endemic. A disease that is usually endemic can become epidemic or pandemic in the future. Additionally, if a disease becomes endemic, there is no guarantee that the disease will remain endemic forever.

A stable infection rate can be associated with any level of disease severity and any level of mortality rate among affected people. In January 2022, paleovirologist Aris Katzourakis wrote that the word 'endemic' is one of the most misused of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that it is dangerously complacent to assume that COVID-19 endemicity is inevitable, or that it means the disease will necessarily become less of a threat to public health. This includes diseases with infection rates that are predictably high (called hyperendemic), as well as diseases with infection rates that are predictably low (called hypoendemic). In an endemic phase, the number of infections can be high or low, as long as it stays within the predicted range.Īn infectious disease is said to be endemic when the number of infections is predictable.

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