4 ms·

We had a small chance of getting rid of covid if we had gotten nearly everyone, 90%+, vaccinated. That didn't happen, the politicization of the vaccine was insa

We had a small chance of getting rid of covid if we had gotten nearly everyone, 90%+, vaccinated. That didn't happen, the politicization of the vaccine was insane, and so now we are stuck with covid. What does this mean? It means we are all going to get covid. Repeatedly. It is a new seasonal illness that will be with us, absent some magical technology. It is (or will be) endemic. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/what-will-it-be-like-when-covid-19-becomes-endemic/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/what-will-it-be-l... The point of the vaccination now is the same thing as always, to minimize the impact on society. Less hospitalizations and death, less days of our life spent ill, less misery. People 100% should still get vaccinated, it is deeply stupid not to. It is particularly important the next several months as delta rips through the remaining unvaccinated population (which include those that can't, including under 12 year olds), because we want to avoid filling up hospitals and making our health care quit. For the same reason, we should wear masks and maybe try to reduce the time spent breathing each others air a bit. But the only ones that should live in fear are those unvaccinated that have never had covid and probably the old. But managing fear is something the old has to do anyway, comes with age ;)

hknapp 5y ago
> We had a small chance of getting rid of covid if we had gotten nearly everyone, 90%+, vaccinated. By small chance, you mean 0% chance, right? Variants were already spreading by the time any vaccines were available. There are also billions of people who will likely not be vaccinated within the next couple years or so.
- gilbetron 5y ago
  We had a non-zero chance of stopping covid, even considering vaccines would take a couple of years to get to everyone, it didn't matter (much) if variants happened. The chance of zero covid comes from vaccines coming out fast enough to drop the R value below 1.0 for a significant amount of time for the virus to go away. However, in hindsight, with animal populations being able to get infected, I think it probably was zero, although that gets well beyond my armchair "skills" ;)
oliv__ 5y ago
So in the end what's your point? Do you support mandatory mask-wearing and social distancing for the rest of our lives?
- gilbetron 5y ago
  My point is that it is here to stay, we need to mitigate the rest of the initial infections (hopefully delta will take care of that in the next month or so), and then we go back to living our lives where individuals choose their own approach to avoiding and handling infectious pathogens. To be clear: that means no mandates.

hknapp 5y ago

> We had a small chance of getting rid of covid if we had gotten nearly everyone, 90%+, vaccinated. By small chance, you mean 0% chance, right? Variants were already spreading by the time any vaccines were available. There are also billions of people who will likely not be vaccinated within the next couple years or so.

gilbetron 5y ago
We had a non-zero chance of stopping covid, even considering vaccines would take a couple of years to get to everyone, it didn't matter (much) if variants happened. The chance of zero covid comes from vaccines coming out fast enough to drop the R value below 1.0 for a significant amount of time for the virus to go away. However, in hindsight, with animal populations being able to get infected, I think it probably was zero, although that gets well beyond my armchair "skills" ;)

oliv__ 5y ago

So in the end what's your point? Do you support mandatory mask-wearing and social distancing for the rest of our lives?

gilbetron 5y ago
My point is that it is here to stay, we need to mitigate the rest of the initial infections (hopefully delta will take care of that in the next month or so), and then we go back to living our lives where individuals choose their own approach to avoiding and handling infectious pathogens. To be clear: that means no mandates.