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The crux of the article is that variants are no cause for concern, and that the virus will become “endemic” and mostly harmless within a few years, by which tim

The crux of the article is that variants are no cause for concern, and that the virus will become “endemic” and mostly harmless within a few years, by which time the majority of the population will have gained immunity. According to the author, the immunity gained through either contracting the virus or getting vaccinated will not necessarily be long-lived, but the protection against complications will, regardless of variants.

tzs 5y ago
That's how it worked for the four previous ones that have long been in widespread human circulation and are responsible for about 20% of common colds (the other 80% are caused by several other kinds of viruses). Immunity against infection from any of those coronaviruses doesn't last long, but protection against serious illness or death lasts longer so that when you get the same virus again in a year or two it isn't bad. We now pretty much all get those four for the first time when we are children, and children are generally quite good at avoiding serious illness and death from them, so that first infection is not too bad. Many researchers believe that the when these first showed up in humans and so there was a large adult population encountering them for the first time they probably did cause pandemics with widespread serious illness and death. In the best case, COVID will be like that. We go from four coronaviruses that cause common colds that are annoying but rarely serious to five coronavirus that do so. In the not as good case, it ends up like the flu. Generally quite a bit more annoying in most cases and in a few tens of thousands a year fatal. Maybe we also end up needing an annual vaccine booster shot for it like we do for flu. There was an interesting article in The Atlantic today covering much of this [1]. PS: if you hit the paywall at the Atlantic but have an iOS device with Apple News+, open the link on that device and then hit the "share" icon and share with News+. The Atlantic is part of News+ and much of their paywalled content is included in News+. Same goes for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/how-we-live-coronavirus-forever/619783/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/how-we-l...
- mypastself 5y ago
  Thanks, that is essentially how I understood the article, except the author errs on the side of optimism, especially in the short term. As the other commenter said, the science is still a moving target. Any article making these types of predictions should still probably be taken with a grain of salt.

tzs 5y ago

That's how it worked for the four previous ones that have long been in widespread human circulation and are responsible for about 20% of common colds (the other 80% are caused by several other kinds of viruses). Immunity against infection from any of those coronaviruses doesn't last long, but protection against serious illness or death lasts longer so that when you get the same virus again in a year or two it isn't bad. We now pretty much all get those four for the first time when we are children, and children are generally quite good at avoiding serious illness and death from them, so that first infection is not too bad. Many researchers believe that the when these first showed up in humans and so there was a large adult population encountering them for the first time they probably did cause pandemics with widespread serious illness and death. In the best case, COVID will be like that. We go from four coronaviruses that cause common colds that are annoying but rarely serious to five coronavirus that do so. In the not as good case, it ends up like the flu. Generally quite a bit more annoying in most cases and in a few tens of thousands a year fatal. Maybe we also end up needing an annual vaccine booster shot for it like we do for flu. There was an interesting article in The Atlantic today covering much of this [1]. PS: if you hit the paywall at the Atlantic but have an iOS device with Apple News+, open the link on that device and then hit the "share" icon and share with News+. The Atlantic is part of News+ and much of their paywalled content is included in News+. Same goes for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/how-we-live-coronavirus-forever/619783/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/how-we-l...

mypastself 5y ago
Thanks, that is essentially how I understood the article, except the author errs on the side of optimism, especially in the short term. As the other commenter said, the science is still a moving target. Any article making these types of predictions should still probably be taken with a grain of salt.