Endemic

BMJ, which is, as far as I can tell, a former medical journal turned medical research, advocacy and education organization, puts it this way:

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus will not be eradicated but will become endemic, continuing to circulate in pockets of the global population for years to come and causing outbreaks in regions where it had been eliminated, scientists working in the field believe.

That's the bad news.  The sort-of-good news:

But the impact of the virus on the world in terms of deaths, illness, and the need for social isolation will lessen, they say, as more of the population acquires some immunity to it through exposure to the virus or from vaccination.

BMJ is passing on the result of a study in Nature, in which they asked "more than 100 immunologists, infectious-disease researchers and virologists working on the coronavirus whether it could be eradicated."  The answer was, effectively, "No."

"Endemic future" is a chilling phrase that we will be hearing and reading about more frequently as the political drama of vaccine resistance plays out, and the chance of herd immunity disappears over the horizon.  "Endemic" refers to a disease which is always present, in at least a certain portion of the population.  Chicken pox, malaria, the flu in all its variety, and the common cold are all endemic.  Even the bubonic plague is endemic. Smallpox is not endemic, because people got vaccinated and herd immunity worked.  

So that's where we are.  Where is the new world?  Somewhere out there, maybe.