Pandemics vs. Epidemics

We received an email recently from Paul in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

He writes, “What’s with pandemic?

We used to have epidemics.

Now we only have pandemics.

From what I see in the dictionary, they mean pretty much the same thing, except that a pandemic might be more so.

Regardless, epidemic seems to vanish from use, certainly as far as CDC and the media are concerned.

Now, Grant, I have to admit that I haven’t heard pandemic very much until recently, but it’s certainly been around for a long time.

I think the two words have a pretty clear difference.

Pandemic is when a lot of people get sick across a very large area, and an epidemic is when a lot of people get sick in a relatively small area.

It’s a difference in size mostly, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Sort of a pandemic is an epidemic that gets out of hand in terms of not only numbers, but location, as far as I can tell.

And I haven’t noticed pandemic replacing epidemic.

I have to say I haven’t heard it much before the recent scare.

Swine flu thing.

Yeah.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there was some linguistic inflation happening here and people were using pandemic just to emphasize their point.

But I haven’t noticed it either.

I do think it’s something to be alert for.

A pandemic is worse than an epidemic, though.

So I think it does apply to the swine flu situation.

Right.

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