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Time to Prepare People to Accept COVID-19 Endemicity
Contagion Live (really) ^ | October 12, 2021 | Jason Gallagher, PharmD, FCCP, FIDP, FIDSA, BCPS*

Posted on 10/14/2021 9:33:55 PM PDT by DoodleBob

SARS-CoV-2 has taken us on a rollercoaster, and not just on graphs of case counts. The natural tendency to project linearity to trends makes each hill and dip feel unnatural. The media exacerbates perceptual changes with its hyperfocal attention on each new development, even expected ones like breakthrough infections. People feel they are being jolted around.

The early efficacy results of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were positively stunning. Demonstrating more than 90% vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection when the goal was a 50% reduction in severe disease caught people off guard. It was the first bit of good news in quite a while, coming at a time when school buildings were shut in much of the country and we adapted to e-school, working from home, and the awkwardness of Zoom happy hours. When vaccines started to be given in December 2020, people began to envision a world without COVID-19.

Things have not turned out that way. Despite commanding the greatest portion of vaccine supply and getting a head start, vaccinations in the US have fallen behind that of most high-income countries; at this writing, the US is at the bottom of the G7 and 60th in the world in percentage vaccinated. However, that is only part of the picture. The virus has not waited for us to vaccinate the world’s population- it keeps evolving towards more transmissible variants. In the Delta variant, SARS-CoV-2 has transformed into not just a highly transmissible variant, but one of the world’s most transmissible infectious diseases. We are fortunate that Delta came to the US after vaccines became widely available or we would be looking at a very different society right now.

The combination of Delta and vaccine hesitancy has cost many lives, but it also highlights the need to reset expectations on the COVID-19 endgame. Herd immunity may never have been a realistic goal, but it seems clear it is an impossibility. Over the next several years, everyone is likely to be infected with SARS-CoV-2. With the attenuation that vaccination provides, most vaccinated people will have asymptomatic, mild, or moderate infection. Unvaccinated people with previous COVID-19 will have less severe reinfection, and the ever-decreasing number of unvaccinated people without previous COVID-19 will be susceptible to severe disease.

The continued spread of immunity, whether acquired by vaccination or infection, will drive overall cases down. However, the incomplete nature of immunity and future mutations in SARS-CoV-2 will allow it to remain a circulating human pathogen like other endemic human coronaviruses.

One of the most apparent issues that the pandemic has revealed is ineffective communication. To increase vaccine uptake, ‘get vaccinated and you’re good’ became the narrative. People listened. When Delta became pervasive and changed things again, momentum towards a ‘post-pandemic’ dream was harder to change. Therefore, it is time to prepare people for a future with endemic COVID-19 now. We won’t be masked forever, but we aren’t wiping the virus off the earth either.


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: covid19; covid1984; gassholedrbait
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To: Jane Long

He has a handle that rhymes with Dr & Gas.


21 posted on 10/14/2021 10:42:56 PM PDT by Deaf Smith (When a Texan takes his chances, chances will be taken that's for sure.)
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To: DoodleBob
Demonstrating more than 90% vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection when the goal was a 50% reduction in severe disease caught people off guard.

What people?

Every other vaccine ever administered to me during my lifetime has had an effectiveness of 99%+.

Regards,

22 posted on 10/14/2021 10:53:02 PM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: alexander_busek
Every other vaccine ever administered to me during my lifetime has had an effectiveness of 99%+.

You didn't have measles, mumps, chickenpox or smallpox vaccinations?

None of them are 99%.

23 posted on 10/14/2021 11:51:00 PM PDT by semimojo
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To: DoodleBob
Obvious pro-vax propaganda wired directly into the general narrative...

Re: "hyperfocal attention on each new development, even expected ones like breakthrough infections."

Break through infections were "expected?"

A year ago, they told us the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were 90%-95% effective. First time I heard about break through infections was 3 months ago.

Re: "it [COVID] keeps evolving towards more transmissible variants."

Translation - the mRNA vaccines rapidly lose potency over time.

24 posted on 10/14/2021 11:53:21 PM PDT by zeestephen
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To: DoodleBob

What a bunch of lying horse sh1t

Every study of who’s getting ill severely and dying show its the vaxxed people by a large majority

And its proving the ADE warnings


25 posted on 10/15/2021 12:31:36 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

And meanwhile, India is looking pretty good compared to the U.S. Unlike us, they are trying to treat people early!


26 posted on 10/15/2021 12:43:34 AM PDT by ConjunctionJunction
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To: DoodleBob

How long before they try to ‘adjust’ the survival rate(s) to make it seem less survivable than it really is?


27 posted on 10/15/2021 2:13:00 AM PDT by equaviator (There's nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.)
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To: semimojo; Impy; bagster; haffast

“The continued spread of immunity, whether acquired by vaccination or infection, will drive overall cases down. However, the incomplete nature of immunity and future mutations in SARS-CoV-2 will allow it to remain a circulating human pathogen like other endemic human coronaviruses.”

Kinda like a bad run of The Flu, wouldn’t ya say?
It’s just the flu bro.


28 posted on 10/15/2021 2:50:11 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (LfEuTcSk GjOoe BbRiAdNeDnDON)
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To: Robert DeLong

“It’s the vaccinated that are being hospitalized and are dying, not those who were never vaccinated.”

It’s the majority in Israel, Scotland and the U.K.

It’s appending here too but the censorship will keep theBig Lie going as long as possible.

Western Europe countries banning the jab to under 30 and entirely.

We are not even getting into ADE injuries/deaths but that will increase mortality numbers too. They will deny it as lounge as possible.

Hell is coming.


29 posted on 10/15/2021 2:56:47 AM PDT by romanesq (TRUSTY THE PLAN! ChiCom Joe is the Plan? Que magnificent! )
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel
Kinda like a bad run of The Flu, wouldn’t ya say?

Pretty close only more contagious and with a more effective vaccine (for now).

30 posted on 10/15/2021 2:58:12 AM PDT by semimojo
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To: semimojo; bagster; haffast; Impy

:: with a more effective vaccine ::

How so?


31 posted on 10/15/2021 3:20:52 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (LfEuTcSk GjOoe BbRiAdNeDnDON)
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel
How so?

Most years the flu vaccine is around 50% effective. The COVID mRNA ones start north of 90%.

We could we'll end up with new COVID vaccine formulations as variants emerge, and the flu vaccines could get a lot better if they can exploit the mRNA tech.

We'll see.

32 posted on 10/15/2021 3:57:59 AM PDT by semimojo
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To: semimojo; haffast; bagster; numberonepal; little jeremiah

:: The COVID mRNA ones start north of 90% ::

Some background, please.
Common-sense understanding of any “vaccine” is directed toward immunity.
It appears that the COVID-19 vaccine is directed toward “prophylaxis” ONLY.


33 posted on 10/15/2021 4:03:21 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (LfEuTcSk GjOoe BbRiAdNeDnDON)
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel
Common-sense understanding of any “vaccine” is directed toward immunity. It appears that the COVID-19 vaccine is directed toward “prophylaxis” ONLY.

No, it's both.

Both Pfizer and Moderna start above 90% in preventing infection. I assume that's what you mean by immunity.

Over time this protection appears to wane but the effectiveness in preventing severe disease says very high. Is that how you're interpreting prophylaxis?

34 posted on 10/15/2021 4:13:18 AM PDT by semimojo
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To: semimojo
I'm not aware of any vaccine with 100% effectiveness.

99% would be fine.

These vaccines are a total joke.

Side effects will not be known for many years--the article is wild speculation at best--magic pretending to be science.
35 posted on 10/15/2021 4:17:36 AM PDT by cgbg (A kleptocracy--if they can keep it. Think of it as the Cantillon Effect in action.)
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To: semimojo
Good article. I think it's spot on.

Of course you do, Mojo the Banned.

#RetreadLiberalTroll


36 posted on 10/15/2021 4:21:27 AM PDT by bagster ("Even bad men love their mamas".)
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To: cgbg
These vaccines are a total joke.

You go to war with the army you have...

37 posted on 10/15/2021 4:22:54 AM PDT by semimojo
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To: semimojo

In this case you sent out the fourteen year old boys to defend Berlin while issuing orders from the bunker—and called anyone a traitor who raised any concerns.


38 posted on 10/15/2021 4:26:22 AM PDT by cgbg (A kleptocracy--if they can keep it. Think of it as the Cantillon Effect in action.)
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To: semimojo
Both Pfizer and Moderna start above 90% in preventing infection.

No they don't, Mojo the Banned.

You shouldn't lie so much, sinner.

#RetreadLiberalTroll


39 posted on 10/15/2021 4:27:42 AM PDT by bagster ("Even bad men love their mamas".)
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To: DoodleBob
but we aren’t wiping the virus off the earth either

What is concerning about this, written by someone who has advanced to Fellowship in the IDSA, is that it was written now, instead of in March 2020.

Many pandemic "restrictions" or "mandates" have at their root an unspoken, but real, belief that eradication is possible.

It was certainly plausible to people who do not study viruses professionally in early 2020 - and Australia, New Zealand, and Iceland did us the favor of doing the experiment in April 2020-July 2021 to conclusively disprove it.

Sweden did the opposite, and proved that if you can accept the higher deaths in the beginning, you can get to endemicity faster.

The US proved that "leaders", and the voters who put them in place, are stupid enough to believe that putting quarantine, isolation, and contact tracing in place and not enforcing any of it can produce a magical outcome and have given us the worst of both worlds, claiming they are following the "science" of the wrong virus (influenza) while pursuing every bureaucrat's dream of a bigger surveillance state and perpetual public fear to keep themselves in power.

Yes, it's easy to see in retrospect. Australia, NZ, and Iceland could have been correct - it was a legitimate open question when they started. That they are keeping it up, now, is some kind of contagious mental illness. The "Sweden, Sweden, Sweden" people could never have sold the up-front death toll in a country as fearful and in denial about death as the United States.

But for an FIDSA author to write this now? "Welcome to the party, pal".

40 posted on 10/15/2021 4:31:39 AM PDT by Jim Noble (The nation cannot be saved until the GOP is destroyed)
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