BBC: How pandemics end-2

What happens in the case of HIV/Aids is that it became from being an immediate death sentence basically to a manageable chronic disease... but that happens in societies that have the means and the infrastructure to make that possible with medication, and that is not necessarily true for all parts of the world, but we don't think about the HIV/Aids pandemic as an ongoing pandemic. 

Although HIV has no cure, modern mdeical drugs allow people to continue living with the disease for years. HIV is no longer a death sentence- a phrase meaning the punishment of death for committing a crime, or from an incurable disease. 

Nowadays, HIV is no longer fatal. It has become a disease which can be controlled and is chronic, or long lasting. We no longer think of Aids as a pandemic, but that's not true everywhere- only in countries which can provide the necessary medical drugs and support. 

Finding the right balance of Covid restrictions for communities of people exhausted by the pandemic isn't easy. Many scientists are warning that we haven't yet reached the begining of the end of Covid, but hopefully we're at least reaching the end of the begining. 

Let's finish the programme on a hopeful note by remmebering that disease can and do eventually end- like in your quiz question, Sam. 

Yes, I asked which disease was eradicated in 1977. Neil said it was smallpox which was the correct answer! Well done, Neil! Smallpox no longer occurs naturally, but did you know that samples of smallpox do still exist, frozen in American and Soviet laboratories during the Cold War!

As if the thought that the Covid pandemic might never end isn't scary enough! Right, let's recap the vocabulary we've learnt starting with eradicate- to completely get rid of something such as a disease. 

If you declare victory, you announce something to be finished before it actually is. The danger is doing this is that you announce it prematurely, or too soon.

The idiom bury your head in the sand means to refuse to accept or look at a situation you don't like.

A death sentence means the punishment of death for committing a crime, or from an incurable disease. 

And finally, a chronic disease is one which lasts for a long tim. Even though the pandemic hasn't ended, our programme has because our six minutes are up.