Epidemiologist Griffith University Australia: Virus Unaffected By Endemic Declaration

PIXABAY ILLUSTRATION

JAKARTA - Australia's Griffith University Epidemiologist Dicky Budiman stressed that the virus will not be affected by the declaration of a change in status from pandemic to endemic.

“In the past, the narrative was about communal immunity, now it is endemic. The endemic status is the basis for the purpose of easing, but once again the virus will not be affected," said Dicky in the Revive Your Immune System in Ramadhan Webinar, reported by Antara, Wednesday, April 6.

Dicky said that entering the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the level of community saturation will be even stronger, even at the state level. Many countries have declared themselves to have entered an endemic period.

In fact, instead of thinking about an endemic declaration, the state should study the models or efforts that can be made to free themselves from the critical period. As well as building community immunity capital is important.

"If there is no vaccination or adequate vaccination coverage or immunity, any variant can have a large impact on mortality and that is what happened in Hong Kong when the elderly who had comorbidities did not want to be vaccinated and ended up fatally," he continued.

Dicky explained that this needs to get attention from a country, because endemics are still dangerous when you see the impact that is still being given to health facilities such as death.

“There is no small impact, there is an impact on death and that is why this has to be straightened out. We're not headed for the endemic," he said.

The virus, said Dicky, will also not be affected by the endemic status, because even though the country is truly endemic, the virus will continue to exist and thrive in society even though cases tend to be more controlled and in accordance with biological laws.

He emphasized that actually in a country there are several areas that may have entered an endemic, some have entered an epidemic or sporadic. This is because each region experiences a different trend of COVID-19 cases.

"Legally, the formal revocation of the pandemic status from the WHO. But, de facto, actually the condition of each country has been divided into sporadic, endemic and epidemic. But, in general, the status is wrapped with a pandemic status," said Dicky.