Opinion: ‘It doesn’t end. We just stop caring’: How a pandemic fades into the background

With or without new surges, the virus is rapidly joining influenza, chicken pox and a long list of other endemic viruses that perpetually circulate in the population. As such, said Andrew Noymer, [associate professor of population health and disease prevention] of the University of California, Irvine, it’s slowly becoming “part of the furniture.”