All indications now point to COVID-19 being endemic and though the vaccines improve outcomes, it’s clear that we’re going to need at least a yearly booster shot basically for the rest of our lives. Below, you will find links to various articles that get into some of the details, but the overall conclusion is that we have definitely lost the war against COVID-19 (yes, that’s the fault of conservatives). The scale of this problem is such that we might have to do what our ancestors did a long time ago — that is, evolve our way out of it. Apparently, there’s some indication that a coronavirus pandemic that began 25,000 years ago only ended because the human animal itself changed over the course of 20,000 years.
While I don’t think we should give up hope, we definitely need to dispense with dreams of defeating COVID-19 any time soon and move on to another source of hope. My recommendation is that when we are considering our options, we should preface everything with, “Since COVID-19 will be with us for the rest of our lives,” and then add whatever mitigation strategy we have in mind. The time scale involved probably makes some mitigations untenable; for example, please don’t plan to just stay home alone for the rest of your life. Certainly, we can also hope science will come up with a solution, but we shouldn’t count on it.
Here are some other examples:
Since COVID-19 will be with us for the rest of our lives, we need to determine how to fund booster shots on a permanent basis.
Since COVID-19 will be with us for the rest of our lives, we need to find palatable ways to protect relatively vulnerable Americans, and make those social changes permanent.
Since COVID-19 will be with us for the rest of our lives, we need to support international efforts to get amenable people vaccinated.
Since COVID-19 will be with us for the rest of our lives, we need to stop trying to force hostile people to comply with protective protocols and consider whether society as a whole should pay for costly COVID-19 treatments for individuals who refuse to be vaccinated.
Article Summaries
Highly-vaccinated Vermont has more COVID-19 cases than ever. Why is this happening? by Elizabeth Murray, Burlington Free Press. Murray points to the waning effectiveness of vaccinations in Vermont (which happened relatively early compared to other states) and the delta variant. “Unvaccinated Vermonters are still the people getting sick and being hospitalized at the highest rates. Infection rates among people in their 20s and children have also contributed to the most recent surge”
Immunologist Dr. Anthony Leonardi speaks on Long COVID and the dangers posed by SARS-CoV-2 by Benjamin Mateus, World Socialist Web Site. This is part 1 of a 2-part series that does a deep dive into the biology of COVID-19 and explains why it isn’t going away. Very technical and hard to read, but not too long and worth the effort.
As Covid recedes in US a new worry emerges: wildlife passing on the virus by Melody Schreiber, The Guardian. Basically, whitetail deer are now a reservoir for COVID-19, which means it isn’t just endemic in humans, but also in a wide variety of animals, and that means that reaching a point where a high percentage of humans are immune is no longer enough to achieve “herd immunity”.
Covid cases are surging in Europe. America is in denial about what lies ahead by Eric Topol, The Guardian, November 12, 2021
One Doctor’s Summary of Our Situation
There’s a great Twitter thread from Dr. Claudia William (a practicing physician in Michigan) that I’m going to reproduce here for your convenience:
We are in trouble. We are seeing a lot of unvaccinated children & young adults [in the hospital]. Scary part is even older vaccinated people coming in very sick. All their tests are negative so no one thinks they have COVID — that’s of the people who agree to test. They have all the COVID symptoms.
Stay vigilant. After just one shift I have a slight stuffy nose and don’t feel great & I’m triple vaxxed. I encourage you to carefully consider what your holiday plans looks like. Please make the right decision to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.
The unvaccinated people are besides themselves bc they can’t seem to understand why they are young & got sick. Most of them ask me “but i didn’t have covid, I never get sick, I’m not getting better and do not feel like myself” Don’t let this be you.
Anyways that’s my update for those who care. Hopefully the news will finally start to report that COVID is no where close to being under control and that we need to be extra vigilant going into the holiday season.
Please don’t come into my replies asking me to explain a virus that has been circulating for more than 20 months. If at this point you still think it’s another virus I can’t help you. It’s not my job to help those in denial.
Also RSV is not taking out a bunch of healthy adults worse than it has any year before…..this is not real.
Sure some people can have RSV but that is not what we are talking about & if it were RSV we wouldn’t see sicker unvaccinated patients than vaccinated patients.