After the peaking of infections driven by the Delta variant of coronavirus, it will transition to endemic disease, according to a prediction made by the former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.
Endemic is defined as an outbreak of a disease that is limited to a specific region and which is present with a community at all times but has a low frequency of infection such as the common cold.
“We’re transitioning from this being a pandemic to being more of an endemic virus, at least here in the United States and probably other western markets. There’s still going to be a pandemic in a lot of parts of the world where you don’t have high vaccination rates,” Gottlieb said in a television interview.
“It’s not a binary point in time, but I think after we get through this delta wave this is going to become more of an endemic illness where you just see sort of a persistent infection through the winter … but not at the levels we’re experiencing right now,” Gottlieb said.
The peak of the pandemic because of the Delta variant could be overcome in the U.S. in November, Gottlieb said while predicting no more large spikes in Covid-19 cases after the ending of the current wave.
The transition of the disease into an endemic in the U.S. will likely be because of the recent approval for booster shots by the FDA, he said.
The number of average daily new Covid-19 cases in the country has again gone past the 100,000 mark – primarily because of the highly contagious Delta variant.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there has been an almost 30 percent rise in the seven-day average for new hospitalizations this week compared to the same data a week earlier.
