The Difference Between an Endemic, Epidemic & Pandemic
You flip on the TV—there’s COVID-19 talk. You scroll through headlines on your phone—COVID-19. Your news app notifications are filled with, you guessed it, the latest on COVID-19. Reports related to COVID-19 have dominated the news almost every day for more than a year at this point. During all this coverage, you’ve probably heard it referred to as an epidemic, pandemic, and endemic—but despite the way these terms get tossed around, they’re not the same. In fact, there are some key differences among them. Consider this your cheat sheet on the vocabulary of viruses.