Other assumption is that after everyone is infected, immunity follows. But I don’t think anyone really knows. This doesn’t behave like normal viruses.
I got into an argument of sorts with a dear old friend today. Friendly argument over breakfast at I-Hop (I had oatmeal). His gf had covid and was out for about two weeks, just cleared the other day with 2 daily negative tests. I told him the good thing is she is extremely unlikely to catch it again but he argued I was wrong. I know there are some rare cases of re-infection but generally speaking a natural immunity should be able to fight off a second infection - unless a really new mutant variant comes on the scene that is unrecognizable to the memory T cells and B cells and the other facets of the adaptive immune system. If that’s the case then it’s anybody’s guess.
Your assessments are very fair and I think you raise good points. I can tell you anecdotally (yes I will say that!) that what I am seeing on the ground is that there are no CoVID cases in the ICU. Where I am , delta went through in August and I have no desire to every repeat those 21 days — it was as bad as I have ever seen. I do think, however, that when it appears that 50% of Europe will be infected in 2 weeks, and when you see where omicron has blown through, it became absolutely the dominant strain — literally everybody (who tested) had it, and there was no increase in critical illness related to SARS or anything that looked remotely close to SARS.
So if it is this contagious and based on reports omicron gives robust antibodies against previous strains and deaths are down — in know someone else pointed out they are a lagging indicator — dealing with it for six weeks we would see it by now — I am comfortable that omicron proves the laws of epidemiology that mutations become more transmissible and less dangerous until it rips through the population and burns out.
This is clinically what we are seeing — but I do find it curious that it has shifted from LRI to URI. I have a lot of curiosity around that.
Have a good night!
Well, if you just take flu and sort of exaggerate everything, you get fairly close. Some characteristics more than others, depending on the variant. That sort of similarity applies to the vaccines' performance, too.