6 ms·

Will We Ever Get Rid of Covid-19?

35 points by theafh 5y ago

KiranRao0 5y ago
Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
Incerto 5y ago
No.
- verdverm 5y ago
  Well maybe, when we graduate to accepting the endemic nature, we'll stop appending the year to it
  - somewhereoutth 5y ago
    Maybe when we've suppressed it as we have with measles. Otherwise, as we have seen with Alpha, Beta, Delta and now Omicron, new variants will keep arising and keep making people very sick. Smallpox used to be endemic, Polio used to be endemic, measles used to be endemic. That is not where we want to end up at. How do we stop this? The same way we did with the others - comprehensive vaccination, mandated if necessary. Lockdowns on any outbreaks.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      Vaccines make me doubtful as we don't yet have sterilising solution. And long term effectiveness is still questioned. What we now have with our inter-connected globalized world make it really hard to get rid off...
      - somewhereoutth 5y ago
        Indeed - they do seem to wane, for symptomatic infection anyway, and we see what happens regarding hospitalisations. Hopefully boosters will provide longer protection. Definitely a learning process.
    - verdverm 5y ago
      Covid us closer to the flu than smallpox. It is never going away. Even with 100% vaccination, people will still get sick. As peer comment noted, there is not a sterilization vaccine. This is the same with the flu. Covid will most likely evolve into a more transmissible, less lethal variant as time goes on.
shoto_io 5y ago
Yes. We already have 4 other Corona Viril endemic in the human population. They probably all started out super deadly in a pandemic. This one will be endemic soon, too (1-2 years I assume).
- lopis 5y ago
  So what you mean is actually "No", we won't get rid of it.
  - shoto_io 5y ago
    I think we will get rid of Covid-19, which is the disease. It will be just another common cold virus. But, "no", we will never get rid of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus).
- somewhereoutth 5y ago
  We have zero evidence that the common cold coronas were previously any more deadly than they are now. Zero evidence. Unfortunately the idea that Covid becomes just another common cold virus can be no more than wishful thinking at this point. Without vaccines and public health interventions, likely SARS-COV-2 would continue washing through the population, with waning immunity and variants causing endless sickness and death, much as smallpox, polio, measles etc used to before we got a handle on them.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    >Unfortunately the idea that Covid becomes just another common cold virus can be no more than wishful thinking at this point. It is not wishful thinking that in the future, child exposure and adult immunity will be the norm. Covid is already just another common cold for the young. Covid infection fatality rate for children is on the order of 1/100,000, similar to influenza or varicella (chicken pox), but much more dangerous for the elderly without immunity (like influenza or varicella). This is drastically different than something like smallpox, which had a 30% fatality rate.
Nevermark 5y ago
Yes, because the longer Covid hangs around, the faster virus fighting tech is going to improve. Even better. The combination of today's fast advancing technical knowledge, paired with the deadliness and globalness of Covid, relationships to HIV in terms of amplified risk, and the common cold and flu, has triggered a highly funded and increasingly organized war, waged with new weapons increasingly generalizable across viruses. This war started with an unusual bang of many "small" battles won surprisingly quickly, which will maintain commitment and momentum needed for the war. Which given the world's inequalities will not be short. Like the world entering the Holocene, our immune systems are entering into the era of routinely engineered support. Watchful preparedness, with engineering and distribution systems for resistance, mitigation and cures. Eventually we will get to routine rapid detection, isolation and extinction. Perhaps even going so far as to eliminate threatening viruses in wildlife. Although that is far off.
anonnyj 5y ago
Why kill the golden goose that provides lifetime vaccine subscription $$$ for Pfizer, etc? I'm wondering what we will call the variants after we run out of letters. Maybe they'll start to look like GPUs. Latest Covid23000 GTX 600 series variant from Vietnam released, here's why doctors and investors are worried!
cashsterling 5y ago
Will we completely eradicate SARS-CoV-2 and its various mutations... no. Will we reach a point where SARS-CoV-2, and its various mutations, are no longer a significant public health concern and we can return to "life as usual"... yes.
- lopis 5y ago
  What exactly makes you think that? If covid disease gets a refresh every couple years like the flu does, it's not impossible that we never, ever get rid of it. It could just become a disease you just expect to get once you're older, unless humans as a species grow immune to it (read that as: lots of us die and only people with resistance to the virus get to breed for a generation or two).
  - TrevorJ 5y ago
    I'm not certain that what you describe is different than what the OP is saying.
    - sjg007 5y ago
      Or it kills us all but not the bats or deer or dogs.
  - cashsterling 5y ago
    Yep... it will continue to mutate and we will always have some SARS-CoV-2, as is the case with the flu. SARS-CoV-2 will probably mutate over time to become less virulent but more transmissible. Vaccines and immune system adaptation will allow most of us to not worry about COVID too much until our later years in life, much like the flu. COVID will continue to cause some deaths, but at a much lower level which is generally acceptable, as is the case with the flu.
    - mckirk 5y ago
      The flu mutates at a way faster rate, though. If the current pandemic was caused by an influenza virus, you'd have a whole lot more strains to worry about. We're only seeing 'this many' Covid variants, because right now it has so many hosts to work with. Whether through vaccination or infection, that will change over time however.
MrMan 5y ago
definitely not
akagusu 5y ago
Covid is the goose of the golden eggs. As long as the Big Pharma is making money, Covid is here to stay.
- peakaboo 5y ago
  It's about much more than money. Society transformation with covid passes, which will become citizen passes. Later the history books will mention covid as the catalyst for world transformation and it won't say a peep about the money that was made, because it doesn't matter.

35 points by theafh 5y ago

Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

Incerto 5y ago

No.

verdverm 5y ago
Well maybe, when we graduate to accepting the endemic nature, we'll stop appending the year to it
- somewhereoutth 5y ago
  Maybe when we've suppressed it as we have with measles. Otherwise, as we have seen with Alpha, Beta, Delta and now Omicron, new variants will keep arising and keep making people very sick. Smallpox used to be endemic, Polio used to be endemic, measles used to be endemic. That is not where we want to end up at. How do we stop this? The same way we did with the others - comprehensive vaccination, mandated if necessary. Lockdowns on any outbreaks.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Vaccines make me doubtful as we don't yet have sterilising solution. And long term effectiveness is still questioned. What we now have with our inter-connected globalized world make it really hard to get rid off...
    - somewhereoutth 5y ago
      Indeed - they do seem to wane, for symptomatic infection anyway, and we see what happens regarding hospitalisations. Hopefully boosters will provide longer protection. Definitely a learning process.
  - verdverm 5y ago
    Covid us closer to the flu than smallpox. It is never going away. Even with 100% vaccination, people will still get sick. As peer comment noted, there is not a sterilization vaccine. This is the same with the flu. Covid will most likely evolve into a more transmissible, less lethal variant as time goes on.

shoto_io 5y ago

Yes. We already have 4 other Corona Viril endemic in the human population. They probably all started out super deadly in a pandemic. This one will be endemic soon, too (1-2 years I assume).

lopis 5y ago
So what you mean is actually "No", we won't get rid of it.
- shoto_io 5y ago
  I think we will get rid of Covid-19, which is the disease. It will be just another common cold virus. But, "no", we will never get rid of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus).
somewhereoutth 5y ago
We have zero evidence that the common cold coronas were previously any more deadly than they are now. Zero evidence. Unfortunately the idea that Covid becomes just another common cold virus can be no more than wishful thinking at this point. Without vaccines and public health interventions, likely SARS-COV-2 would continue washing through the population, with waning immunity and variants causing endless sickness and death, much as smallpox, polio, measles etc used to before we got a handle on them.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  >Unfortunately the idea that Covid becomes just another common cold virus can be no more than wishful thinking at this point. It is not wishful thinking that in the future, child exposure and adult immunity will be the norm. Covid is already just another common cold for the young. Covid infection fatality rate for children is on the order of 1/100,000, similar to influenza or varicella (chicken pox), but much more dangerous for the elderly without immunity (like influenza or varicella). This is drastically different than something like smallpox, which had a 30% fatality rate.

Nevermark 5y ago

Yes, because the longer Covid hangs around, the faster virus fighting tech is going to improve. Even better. The combination of today's fast advancing technical knowledge, paired with the deadliness and globalness of Covid, relationships to HIV in terms of amplified risk, and the common cold and flu, has triggered a highly funded and increasingly organized war, waged with new weapons increasingly generalizable across viruses. This war started with an unusual bang of many "small" battles won surprisingly quickly, which will maintain commitment and momentum needed for the war. Which given the world's inequalities will not be short. Like the world entering the Holocene, our immune systems are entering into the era of routinely engineered support. Watchful preparedness, with engineering and distribution systems for resistance, mitigation and cures. Eventually we will get to routine rapid detection, isolation and extinction. Perhaps even going so far as to eliminate threatening viruses in wildlife. Although that is far off.

anonnyj 5y ago

Why kill the golden goose that provides lifetime vaccine subscription $$$ for Pfizer, etc? I'm wondering what we will call the variants after we run out of letters. Maybe they'll start to look like GPUs. Latest Covid23000 GTX 600 series variant from Vietnam released, here's why doctors and investors are worried!

cashsterling 5y ago

Will we completely eradicate SARS-CoV-2 and its various mutations... no. Will we reach a point where SARS-CoV-2, and its various mutations, are no longer a significant public health concern and we can return to "life as usual"... yes.

lopis 5y ago
What exactly makes you think that? If covid disease gets a refresh every couple years like the flu does, it's not impossible that we never, ever get rid of it. It could just become a disease you just expect to get once you're older, unless humans as a species grow immune to it (read that as: lots of us die and only people with resistance to the virus get to breed for a generation or two).
- TrevorJ 5y ago
  I'm not certain that what you describe is different than what the OP is saying.
  - sjg007 5y ago
    Or it kills us all but not the bats or deer or dogs.
- cashsterling 5y ago
  Yep... it will continue to mutate and we will always have some SARS-CoV-2, as is the case with the flu. SARS-CoV-2 will probably mutate over time to become less virulent but more transmissible. Vaccines and immune system adaptation will allow most of us to not worry about COVID too much until our later years in life, much like the flu. COVID will continue to cause some deaths, but at a much lower level which is generally acceptable, as is the case with the flu.
  - mckirk 5y ago
    The flu mutates at a way faster rate, though. If the current pandemic was caused by an influenza virus, you'd have a whole lot more strains to worry about. We're only seeing 'this many' Covid variants, because right now it has so many hosts to work with. Whether through vaccination or infection, that will change over time however.

MrMan 5y ago

definitely not

akagusu 5y ago

Covid is the goose of the golden eggs. As long as the Big Pharma is making money, Covid is here to stay.

peakaboo 5y ago
It's about much more than money. Society transformation with covid passes, which will become citizen passes. Later the history books will mention covid as the catalyst for world transformation and it won't say a peep about the money that was made, because it doesn't matter.