Storm surge in cases puts India on long road from pandemic to endemic

Unsurprised by the rising numbers, epidemiologists are concerned about the virus reaching rural and tribal areas

India has witnessed a storm surge in coronavirus cases that epidemiologists expect will continue for a few weeks, placing the country on a long road to reach from the pandemic to the endemic stage, when the number of cases decline and stabilise. (A pandemic is spread across multiple countries or continents, while an endemic is restricted to a particular population or geography. In the latter, the disease is present in a community at all times but in relatively low frequency, such as chicken pox.)

Data from the first national serosurvey has suggested that the actual cases, which are going undetected, are