Many good points in this Atlantic essay; an excerpt:
What experts do agree on is that endemicity is not monolithic. The water in that tub might be hot or cold; the level it plateaus at can be very high or very low. The world’s pathogens run the gamut. Viruses such as herpes simplex 1, which causes cold sores and, less commonly, genital herpes, are considered endemic throughout the world. In the United States, HSV-1 affects, by some estimates, at least half of Americans, though most of the infections are asymptomatic or not terribly severe, especially among adults. Malaria, meanwhile, sickens more than 200 million people a year, and kills at least 400,000, most of them under the age of 5. That, too, is endemicity.
(Thanks to Dr. David Ozonoff for the pointer.)
