What conditions have to be met to declare the Pandemic over?

[MagicSummer]

Does anyone know what has to happen before the WHO declares it over? Are there a number of conditions which have to be met - is it purely numbers-led?

Will be so fantastic when this happens!

I thought pandemic meant virus was found in a certain amount of countries, so presume we won’t be out of it until more countries are virus free (unfortunately).

I’m sure Boris is dying to ‘declare the pandemic over in the U.K.’

This was already achieved. COVID is not longer a pandemic in this country it's been downgraded to endemic. This means is present in low numbers but not longer a concern. This was a bbc article a few days ago. Will try to link

Thus is a really good question and I would love to know. I heard that cases are still rising at the highest rate ever according to the WHO. So depressing.

There isn't a clear or good definition of pandemic - the most basic definition would mean that a great many viruses are pandemic - they exist worldwide or almost worldwide, and few if any countries are virus free. The most obvious example would be flu. Usually the definition is that a pandemics happens when new (novel) virus emerges which is able to infect people easily and spread from person to person in an efficient and sustained way; and which occurs worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people. But there are shades of meaning to this - often we also mean that we have no effective way of treating or preventing transmission; and the severity of the outbreak often also informs our judgement, so something that has serious outcomes rather than a few sniffles. Technically, a new form a cold could become pandemic (and often would), but nobody would be worrying about that unless it started to kill or seriously disrupt.

The definition of "over" is also a bit loose. It is when the virus is no longer prevalent across the world or in a large region. Various experts have different interpretations of what that means, but there is no fixed definition. Broadly, lower deaths, less serious cases, and manageable treatments feature in such theories - but there isn't a magic formula that says one is over.

@user1471518104

This was already achieved. COVID is not longer a pandemic in this country it's been downgraded to endemic. This means is present in low numbers but not longer a concern. This was a bbc article a few days ago. Will try to link

You may have read that, but it would be incorrect. A pandemic does not cease to exist if one country lowers its numbers. It is a word that is about large scale geography, not small scale borders.

I suppose we could move from pandemic to epidemic once it is under control in Europe (and the Western world/developed nations)?

It can then still be recognized to be a problem in developing nations and regions such as parts of Southern America, East Asia and Africa?.

@MagicSummer

Does anyone know what has to happen before the WHO declares it over? Are there a number of conditions which have to be met - is it purely numbers-led?

Will be so fantastic when this happens!

Brilliant question

@Mindymomo

I thought pandemic meant virus was found in a certain amount of countries, so presume we won’t be out of it until more countries are virus free (unfortunately).

If this was the case, then prevalent but mild diseases would be pandemic all the time. There are cases of flu, colds, chicken pox etc in many many countries but they aren't pandemic. There must be something about the severity, number of people affected or something which defines it as a "pandemic" and not just a "disease which is found in many places".

I think it will be when the situation is deemed to be under control across most of the world. Being cynical, that will probably be when it's under control in the bits of the world that 'matter'.