What Does It Mean That The Pandemic Is Over?

 Joe Biden said - more or less accurately - that the pandemic is over. This led to the usual bad faith caterwauling on the Right about vaccine mandates and other emergency measures which are the death of freedom, doncha know.

It's important to differentiate the pandemic disease and the endemic disease. Coronaviruses are common, so common, in fact, that the common cold is a coronavirus. Covid-19 was a "novel" coronavirus, which meant the human immune system didn't quite know what to do with it. This led to various lethal problems with the body's immune system launching the cytokine storm that attempts to kill the virus but kills your internal organs instead. It leads to the lungs filling up with fluid as the lungs don't know how to fight off a novel virus.

Over time, people have acquired two forms of immunological defenses: vaccines and acquired immunity. In my case, I've got both. I've had two Pfizer shots, two Moderna boosters, a severe case of Covid and I'm going in for the new Omicron booster next week (I think). 

Idiots on the Right (but I repeat myself) whine about having to take Covid shots for the rest of their life.

Well, in October, I'm getting my annual flu shot, just like I have since I started teaching. Flu won't (likely) kill me, but I don't want to get it. It's awful. Flu is also endemic (though it can become an epidemic if it's severe enough). 

Last night, I ran a study hall for maybe 10 students. It sounded like a kennel, with students barking out course coughs. The same thing is happening in my classes. Most, if not all of them, had been tested for Covid and come up negative. While we have had some kids with Covid, we've had a lot more students miss time with a different cold that's circulating through a teenaged population whose immune systems are still learning.

We are reaching a point with Covid where it's just going to be a flu-like illness that you really don't want to get, but shouldn't be life threatening (unless you have underlying conditions). 

On the question of masks, most people have stopped wearing them, but we do have some students - mostly Asian - who continue to wear them. Despite my severe case of Covid, I don't wear one, because I want my immune system to be "active" and "learn" the various strains of colds going around. 

But I certainly don't think it's my business to tell anyone what they should do.

This disease was always going to become endemic. It seems like we have reached that point. It doesn't mean that Covid is "over" but rather that it has moved from pandemic to endemic.