Posted on 01/03/2022 7:56:55 PM PST by House Atreides
Never mind how virulent the coronavirus is. The key point is that it is now endemic.
Perhaps it will become milder over time, perhaps it won’t. Obviously, we must hope that it does, that it follows the same trajectory as other viruses, becoming less lethal but more transmissible until it joins that sprawling family of rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, and, indeed, coronaviruses that we collectively call “colds.”…
… What if COVID-19 is as ineradicable and endemic as influenza? What if it comes and goes seasonally, leaving its victims with a dollop of immunity that wanes over time? What if, like the flu, it regularly mutates, meaning that recovery from one version bestows only partial protection against others? What if it is checked rather than halted by vaccines — again, like flu rather than, say, polio?
If we are dealing with such a disease, a recurrent respiratory virus, then almost all the measures that we have put in place around the world are pointless.
Let me repeat that: Almost all of them are pointless.
Restrictions designed for an epidemic make no sense when applied to an endemic disease. Why test people at airports when the virus is everywhere? Why require masks when almost all of us going to be infected, probably several times during our lifetimes? Why try to slow things up by closing schools or banning large gatherings?
The argument for lockdowns, all along, was that COVID-19 risked overwhelming our hospitals. Lockdowns were a way to spread things out, to flatten the curve, to (in British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s phrase) “squash the sombrero.” We can argue about whether the lockdowns were proportionate or effective even on their own terms. Having backed the Swedish approach throughout, I can’t resist pointing out that Sweden had the lowest excess mortality rate in 2021 of any country in Europe. But there was at least an argument for buying time — especially while we were rolling out the vaccines. What are we buying time for now?
The omicron strain makes pitilessly clear that the virus will carry on mutating and that no country can keep new variants at bay. So let’s put the question starkly. Are we going to respond to each mutation by scrambling to reerect the defenses that we put in place for the alpha version? Travel bans that we know don’t work? Preemptive lockdowns, sold as a way to prevent future lockdowns? (How has that been working out?)
Or should we not now accept that the disease, like the poor, will be always with us? Its worst effects are mitigated by past infections or by vaccination, but it can still be nasty and, in a small minority of cases, fatal. It will, in other words, be like an especially brutal kind of flu, coming back each winter, sometimes milder, sometimes harsher.
How do we respond to the flu? Most of us pick up a dose of immunity when we are relatively young and healthy. As we get older, we can avail ourselves of vaccines, which are updated annually to take account of the latest strains. I’m not saying it will be easy or cost-free. COVID-19 is, at least in its present form, a more serious killer than the flu. But even if it does not evolve to lower virulence, even if we are left to rely on vaccines, treatments, and other medical interventions, we know that we can get by.
The alternative, as is now clear, is to shut down in response to each new variant. Had that been the proposal two years ago, had we been told that we were facing a lifetime of chronic closures, we would not have countenanced it. But, bit by bit, we have been lulled, habituated, anesthetized — to the point where a permanent diminution of our liberties seems almost natural. For, make no mistake, these shutdowns will be a permanent feature of life. Like a postwar people subjected to price controls, we shall be left with supposedly contingent measures long after the emergency passed. If we don’t ditch them now, I fear we never will.
REMEMBER: NOW IT IS ENDEMIC… AND NO LONGER PANDEMIC. Let’s treat it like it’s endemic. IT’S ONLY THE FLU, BRO.
nope
no more than we accept seasonal fly and cold
this is code for eternal perpetual loss of freedom and massive govt control and interference
We also have to stop acting like it’s the end of the world.
Every story on COVID should begin with the following note, in big bold type:
The bought-and-paid-for media has very successfully managed to bury that fact for months. Their oligarch benefactors want them bringing THE FEAR, not reasoned discussion.
As long as bureaucrats are guiding the response instead of actual science and real experts, we’ll never be rid of it
‘tis but a cold now. In fact, Xicron is an inmune system boosting strain.
It’s a RNA corona virus (for folks with college level immunology) - it’s very mutable. We have never made a durable vaccine for these type of bugs.
Warn the vulnerable. Quarantine the sick. Should have simply done this for the last two years.
That’s how all pandemics end.
This (January) should be the last big month.
But not before we have another crazy week…
In the history of mankind we have managed to eradicate a total of one human virus, smallpox, and it took 200 years of vaccinations to do it. We almost managed to eradicate polio after only 66 years of vaccinations, but cases keep popping up in Afghanistan and after Biden handed Afghanistan back to the Taliban, the chances of eradication of polio are now close to zero. Far more likely is that millions of refugees streaming out of the only place on Earth with polio is going to cause new epidemics around the world.
A big difference between smallpox or polio and COVID it that catching smallpox or polio gives you lifetime immunity, making it possible to develop vaccines that give lifetime immunity. Catching COVID only gives you seasonal immunity (I tested positive for COVID today and had it last fall as well). So far, I feel like I have a bad cold, just like I felt the first time.
“… Warn the vulnerable. Quarantine the sick. Should have simply done this for the last two years.”
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Absolutely. We’ve been doing ourselves and, most particularly, our children a HUGE DISSERVICE by our STUPID, COUNTERPRODUCTIVE actions. Even now the idiocy continues in many areas of the country. In Maryland, where I live, they still routinely test students and teachers. Should anyone test positive for COVID-19 they must go into quarantine for the proscribed period (10 days?) as do any other students or teachers who were close to them for more than 15 minutes. Our county government routinely sends out alerts about how many thousands of students and teachers they have in quarantine (i.e., staying home) that week. And if the test positivity rate goes above a certain percent (5%) in a school they shut the entire school down and go back to remote internet learning for a few weeks. There are many schools who are going remote because of this testing threshold being breached. It’s MADNESS… they’re desperately fighting the inevitable arrival of herd immunity. It’s almost here despite their best efforts to delay its arrival.
All the variants were caused by the vaxxed. They were warned from the beginning that would happen.
“All the variants were caused by the vaxxed. They were warned from the beginning that would happen.”
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9DJJQm19OM
Excellent!
I’m feeling a little less like a voice in the wilderness when I repeat something I’ve posted a few times before:
COVID-19 is airborne.
That means, “in the air, everywhere”.
It is ENDEMIC.
We will ALL get exposed..over and over.
MANY of us will “test positive”, mostly without symptoms.
SOME of us will be “symptomatic”, and a subset will be really sick.
And (unfortunately) a FEW of us will die.
This is NOT the Bubonic plague.
This is NOT the Spanish Influenza.
You can’t mask it away.
You can’t [anti]”socially distance” it away.
You can’t even “deep clean” it away.
And {{{shudder}}} YOU CAN’T EVEN VACCINATE IT AWAY!
Tear off that face diaper.
Breathe deeply. Inhale some COVID.
Build up your immune system.
And LIVE!
[[We must accept COVID-19 as an endemic disease]]
With a ... gasp ... 99.9% survival rate—
Where did the flu go? Oh that’s right- the tests for ‘covid’ couldn’t distinguish between the two- so EVERYTHING was written down as ‘covid’
Whack-a-mole, Virology Edition.
I'm on round 2 as well. I had what was probably beta variant in March and now I have omicron. Beta had more dizziness, lasted longer, and took away my sense of smell for a few days. Omicron is more cold-like and generally faster moving. Antiviral and immune supporting supplements in combination with rest, hydration and a good dose of multi-symptom cold relief meds for the night are getting the job done.
The virus was made and released to get gullible people to take the vax.
Remember your boosters!
“Obviously, we must hope that it does, that it follows the same trajectory as other viruses, becoming less lethal but more transmissible until it joins that sprawling family of rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, and, indeed, coronaviruses that we collectively call “colds.””
Glad to see some common sense from a major news source. But Omicron is not like the common cold; it is the common cold. They author unfortunately could not state the obvious without being censored.
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