I have a drawer full of tin foil hats. I am ready!
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However difficult what needed to be done, it needed to be done. But God forbid we inconvenience international travelers, or have govt infringe the sacred property rights of the airlines. They ended up taking a bath anyway, because even left to our own devices in the refusal of our govt to do much of anything, individuals themselves chose not to crowd into flying death traps.
And really, NZ’s success was not primarily in keeping the virus out. They already had an outbreak before they started draconian policing of entry into the country, and they have had outbreaks since. NZ succeeded in stomping on all such outbreaks before the virus got into the general population by taking internal measures. That involved not only socialized medical care, but social insurance solutions for housing people who got COVID but didn’t have housing adequate to keep others at their residences from becoming infected. It included social insurance to support demand in the economy through the mandatory shutdowns needed to stomp on the outbreaks.
This is what we need to do. This is what the survivors will eventually get around to doing. We lost our best chance at doing this with the least effort in January 2020, but every day we delay doing what is necessary just makes an ever stronger response necessary if we are to have a whole lot of survivors at the end of this. The thing is neither as contagious or virulent as the Black Death, yet, but give evolution time and unlimited biomass to work with, and we’ll see what the virus can get up to.
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What great news for the drug companies. I expect they’re thrilled.
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Get ready for a fight over Medicare cost.
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As of February 2021, yes.
Exhibit A: half a million and counting COVID19 corpses.
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There’s some credibility to the theory that a well tempered virus doesn’t kill it’s host. As for the ill tempered ones …
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Yup, viruses are like that. I think we have only eradicated one, smallpox. The medical doctors that have given so many years to fight infectious disease, and in particular the ones did eradicated smallpox are literally saints.
And all I can give is a my tip of the hat to all of them. God bless them.
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Anything is possible, but it is going to be difficult because of how MRNA vaccines work. If it does mutate beyond of the vaccine’s ability to control it, it is probably going to render itself unable to infect us.
Now we probably will have to receive regular booster shots, so the vaccine companies have a bright future.
This particular technology might be able to help us develop vaccines for cancer. Which is pretty cool technology.
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That’s why they released it in the first place, and made sure it was endemic before they released the vaccines.
Conspiracy theory much?
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Most countries on the planet haven’t been nearly smart enough to admit the need to have eradication as the goal. Those few that have show us that this was always possible and effective if tried, at least by countries like the US that have the resources needed.
The new administration is definitely not free to be completely non-stupid, and you could definitely argue that they are being as smart as present political reality allows. My point is that political reality needs to change in response to virologic reality, because change is definitely not happening the other way around, and the two will eventually be reconciled into one reality.
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Hey, it’s the old maxim-- who stands to profit from the crime.
Coke and Pepsi clearly were behind the “threat” in the mid-2000s of liquid bombs on planes, for example. It’s the only way they’ve been able to rape people for like $5 for a fucking bottle of water in airports.
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Sorry Pfizer and Moderna, your shots may be good in the short term, but I suspect immunity starts to fade before a year is up. Regardless of mutations. Have a feeling that in the long run, both may actually lose money in their vaccine endeavor.
Covaxin is a whole virus vaccine that will work on most mutations. It’s not going to be the last vaccine of that type. Made by an Indian firm.
Okay, as an AstraZeneca shareholder, I’m a little biased against Pfizer and Moderna. But I was biased against them before I bought AZN.
I communicate often with a couple of dingbats. Will that work?
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It was never possible once it was out. The only examples you have are literal islands, able to be 100% isolated by virtue of being surrounded by water.
Everywhere else, it’s about mitigation. You can’t shut down countries 100%. People need to eat, they need heat, water… So there’s always going to be a minimum level of commerce required, which means that an endemic virus is going to inevitably spread.
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Here is what happened in 1918. Basic evolutionary biology took over. The flu virus mutated sometime around the middle of the 2nd year into something non-lethal. The non-lethal strain crowded out the lethal strain and the virus “mysteriously” faded away. That might be what happens with Covid 19 somewhere down the road. That is bad news for the vaccine makers.
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One thing about the new technology behind the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is that it is real easy to modify them to accommodate new variants. I’m not sure if the FDA would require full phase I-III trials for each modification though.
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We will probably receive covid boosters at the same time we receive our seasonal flu shots.
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That’s exactly right. Microbes thrive in a warmer climate. Pandemics tend to happen after severe weather events particularly floods and droughts.
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[quote=“discobot, post:1, topic:203480”]
Offit said that the coronavirus is relatively young in terms of its existence in the human population.
[/quote] Regarding this, it seems to miss the fact that numerous corona viruses are currently in circulation in the human population, exhibited as “common colds.” Last year I read a journal article that suggested that one of those “common colds” was a pandemic killer in the mid 1800s. That may well be the path for covid-19
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