At the beginning of 2020, everyone began to closely follow the events taking place in China. Namely, after the celebration of the Chinese New Year, news outlets were full of notes about the mass incidence of a previously unknown disease. Some time later, the term “epidemic” was applied to this outbreak, and after a while the name was changed to “pandemic”. So what’s the difference?
Epidemic
Everyone knows about seasonal diseases. But, first of all, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention knows this, expects and assesses the risks of an outbreak of morbidity. It is a sharp jump exceeding the expected number of cases in a certain region that is called an “epidemic”. The key word here is “in this region”, which implies non-proliferation beyond its borders of the whole country, and even more so to other countries. Notable examples of the epidemic are: severe acute respiratory syndrome in Vietnam and Hong Kong in 2003, Ebola in Guinea in 2014, Zika virus in South and Central America in 2015.
Pandemic
Accordingly, if the number of cases is growing at a high rate, and cases of the disease are recorded not only in other regions, but also in countries, that is, in most of the world, then it is considered to be a “pandemic” type of spread. This is the most dangerous form of the spread of the disease. In this case, each person is considered to be at high risk of infection. The most famous cases of the pandemic are: plague, smallpox, cholera, typhus, influenza and others. Most often, these diseases led to death, which led to a large loss of the planet’s population.
