4 ms·

Basically trying discredit people who communicate in any way the possibility that covid-19 will be endemic.

graeme 5y ago
Yes, but what do you or those people mean by “it will become endemic”. If Malaria became endemic in every country that would be a catastrophe. There’s nothing gentle about the word. The common cold is endemic and so is dengue. So: are you describing a scenario that is: 1. Business as usual (once we get enough immunity medium/long run) 2. A small bit worse than 2019 3. Quite a bit worse than 2019 4. Substantially worse than 2019 ? My point is the word endemic doesn’t mean anything other than “disease is present”. But people say it as if the word includes severity. When people say that I take them to indicate belief in scenario 1, or possibly scenario 2. I think it probably will be endemic but we’re minimum scenario 3. I don’t think that is what endemicity proponents believe however.
- unclebucknasty 5y ago
  >I think it probably will be endemic but we’re minimum scenario 3 I think the variables are: 1. Vaccine that prevents infection/transmission at a significantly more substantial rate 2. Significant waning of vaccine effectiveness per new variants 3. Unexpected increase (or decrease) in virulence of new strains. 4. Significant improvements in treatment (including medications) These are, of course, unknowns. But, holding these constant, I believe we can calculate with fair accuracy how bad it will be as a direct function of the percentage of the population that's vaccinated.
  - graeme 5y ago
    Thanks! I’m personally hopeful on point 1. Nasal vaccines seem to offer a fair bit of potential for mucosal immunity which could go further in blunting both breakthroughs and transmission.
- kongin 5y ago
  > Yes, but what do you or those people mean by “it will become endemic”. It sounds like you're tone policing people based not on what basic mathematics says, but what you want the world to be like. Eradicating covid is impossible, ergo it will become endemic. What that looks like depends on what the next mutations of the virus look like. I don't have a crystal ball to guess that.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

Yes, but what do you or those people mean by “it will become endemic”. If Malaria became endemic in every country that would be a catastrophe. There’s nothing gentle about the word. The common cold is endemic and so is dengue. So: are you describing a scenario that is: 1. Business as usual (once we get enough immunity medium/long run) 2. A small bit worse than 2019 3. Quite a bit worse than 2019 4. Substantially worse than 2019 ? My point is the word endemic doesn’t mean anything other than “disease is present”. But people say it as if the word includes severity. When people say that I take them to indicate belief in scenario 1, or possibly scenario 2. I think it probably will be endemic but we’re minimum scenario 3. I don’t think that is what endemicity proponents believe however.

unclebucknasty 5y ago
>I think it probably will be endemic but we’re minimum scenario 3 I think the variables are: 1. Vaccine that prevents infection/transmission at a significantly more substantial rate 2. Significant waning of vaccine effectiveness per new variants 3. Unexpected increase (or decrease) in virulence of new strains. 4. Significant improvements in treatment (including medications) These are, of course, unknowns. But, holding these constant, I believe we can calculate with fair accuracy how bad it will be as a direct function of the percentage of the population that's vaccinated.
- graeme 5y ago
  Thanks! I’m personally hopeful on point 1. Nasal vaccines seem to offer a fair bit of potential for mucosal immunity which could go further in blunting both breakthroughs and transmission.
kongin 5y ago
> Yes, but what do you or those people mean by “it will become endemic”. It sounds like you're tone policing people based not on what basic mathematics says, but what you want the world to be like. Eradicating covid is impossible, ergo it will become endemic. What that looks like depends on what the next mutations of the virus look like. I don't have a crystal ball to guess that.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]