Coronavirus a Pandemic, but then What is ‘Pandemic’

World Health Organization Declares COVID-19 a ‘Pandemic.’ WHO defines a pandemic as the global spread of a new disease, though the specific threshold for meeting that criteria are fuzzy. CDC says it’s used when viruses “are able to infect people easily and spread from person to person in an efficient and sustained way” in multiple regions.

Difference Between an Epidemic and a Pandemic

An epidemic is defined as “an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population.” whereas the term pandemic relates to geographic spread and is used to describe a disease that affects a whole country or the entire world.

A pandemic is the highest possible level of disease

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a disease needs to cross all the below stages to be called a pandemic.

Sporadic: When a disease occurs infrequently and irregularly.

Endemic: A constant presence and/or usual prevalence of a disease or infection within a geographic area. (Hyperendemic, is a situation in which there are persistent, high levels of disease occurrence.)

Epidemic: A sudden increase in the number of cases of the disease—more than what’s typically expected for the population in that area.

Notable Pandemics in History

In addition to HIV, which has killed over 39 million people since 1982, there have been many other pandemics:

The bubonic plague of Justinian of 541 A.D. wiped out 25-50 million people in one year.

The Black plague killed more than 75 million people from 1347 to 1351

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed 675,000 Americans and the death toll mounted to 50 million people in one year

The smallpox pandemic of the 20th century claimed between 300 to 500 million lives. 

Tuberculosis an ongoing pandemic continues to kill over 1.5 million people each year.

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