[ridiskdkfjsl]

the distinction between pandemic and endemic is political and typically related to “we don’t care to contain it”. It’s not related to immunity levels. The interesting thing is that it used to be citizens of poorer countries who would be fodder, now it’s also the richer ones which I think says something about the state of those countries and progress in general

[LorenPechtel]

I wouldn't say so much that we don't care to contain it, but that pandemic means it's sweeping over a population, endemic means it's simply always present in the population without major swings in prevalence. Impossible to contain because it's already everywhere.

[ridiskdkfjsl]

‘impossible to’ doesn’t really fit into my idea of the HN crowd.

It’s cost/benefit and leaders took the ‘keep the graph going up and to the right next quarter’ approach to the long term risks.

Containment is of course possible, it would just take technology improvements for diagnostic tests and education and investment in air quality.

The calculation is that saving the years of ill health aren’t worth disrupting the status quo

Edit: What’s the difference between sweeping over and always present? Whether we test and report it in the news or not?