When it comes to handling COVID-19, states like California, Rhode Island and Oklahoma have started calling it an "endemic." That’s when the virus still exists in the community, but becomes manageable with immunity.

“I hope that in a few weeks, we can get there,” said Dr. David Holtgrave, dean of the School of Public Health at the University at Albany.

He said New York is moving in the right direction, but the number of COVID deaths nationwide show it’s not quite there yet.

“Already in 2022, we had about 123,000 deaths due to COVID,” Holtgrave said. “That’s about three years or so worth of influenza all squeezed into two months essentially so far.”

The Centers for Disease Control Prevention (CDC) has released new guidelines on the level of risks in communities, which indicates most Americans can stop wearing masks.

In the Hudson Valley, Ulster County officials announced the transition from pandemic mode to an endemic mode.

“It tends to be just a difference in intensity, of response. It doesn’t mean it’s an absence of response,” said Dr. Carol Smith, Ulster County health commissioner.

She said the steep drop in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations led to this new approach, announced earlier this month. While transmission levels are currently low, Smith said the virus is still present and they will continue to keep an eye on it.

“We can, in a way, monitor it, but not be as heightened a mode as we’ve been in two years,” Smith said.

While other counties, and even the state, have similar policies in place, they’re not calling it an endemic yet. But Smith said they’ll continue to promote mask-wearing for symptomatic residents and encourage people to get vaccinated or boosted.

“We’re watching, again, the way the virus behaves in the community, so that we’re ready to respond if we need to ramp it up again,” Smith said. “We got a lot of work to do to continue to control COVID, and we really got to rebuild the public health infrastructure in the U.S.,” Holtgrave said.