We Must Start Planning For a Permanent Pandemic

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) For the past year, an assumption — sometimes explicit, often tacit — has informed almost all our thinking about the pandemic: At some point, it will be over, and then we’ll go “back to normal.”

This premise is almost certainly wrong. SARS-CoV-2, protean and elusive as it is, may become our permanent enemy, like the flu but worse. And even if it peters out eventually, our lives and routines will by then have changed irreversibly. Going “back” won’t be an option; the only way is forward. But to what exactly?

Most epidemics disappear once populations achieve herd immunity and the pathogen has too few vulnerable bodies available as hosts for its self-propagation. This herd protection comes about through the combination of natural immunity in people who’ve recovered from infection and vaccination of the remaining population.

In the case of SARS-CoV-2, however, recent developments suggest that we may never achieve herd immunity. Even the U.S., which leads most other countries in vaccinations and already had large outbreaks, won’t get there. That’s the upshot of an analysis by Christopher Murray at the University of Washington and Peter Piot at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. ...........(more)

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-24/when-will-covid-end-we-must-start-planning-for-a-permanent-pandemic?srnd=premium

[lagomorph777]

1. I'm afraid so.

Not all of the changes are bad; more working from home (at least as an option) will save billions of barrels of fuel, rush hour traffic, and pulled-out hair.

Same for retail, painful as the transition is.

But anti-vaxers will be a worse scourge than ever.

[Horse with no Name]

2. Because of piss poor management

This virus has/will become endemic.
Make no mistake, we wouldn’t be here without the poor management of the virus by trump.

[empedocles]

3. That and the significant widespread resistance to vaccination. Reported here

49% of republicons intend to refuse vaccination?

[Towlie]

17. That's the real problem: The mainly conservative belief in a constitutional right to spread disease.

 
?

The more things change, the more they'll never be the same.

[HUAJIAO]

19. And mask wearing and keeping distance.. and avoiding public gatherings, and, and....

[Iggo]

4. Endemic.

[LastDemocratInSC]

16. Yes, that's the correct term.

Not part of everyday language but that could change in the near future.

[Hortensis]

5. The common cold is a permanent pandemic. We're learning

how to sit at keyboards and design killers for SARS2 and other pathogens. Before long, developers will be messaging specially designed epidemiological weaponry around the planet to manufacture for local problems.

We caught a real break that the Republicans/Trump turned SAR2 loose on our nation at a point when science was approaching this capability and the planetary crisis was able to trigger great new advances.

We will return to what everyone considers normal. That could mean we all keep masks in our dressers for those times when local outbreaks occur and need to be quickly contained and eliminated (as in within 2 weeks). I haven't had a cold in over a year, wouldn't mind at all if mask wearing became seen as normal and acceptable during flu season, etc.

[greymattermom]

6. oral treatments are on their way

They work against viral genes, similar to those for HIV, and they won't be cheap. We will need a way to pay for them, or Republcan men will be chronically ill.

[Aristus]

7. I'm not sure I share the alarmism.

Yes, the possibility exists that we may all need to get a yearly COVID-19 booster. But we don't know for sure yet.

When the Black Plague was ravaging 14th Century Europe, people thought it was the end of the world. And it's impossible to minimize the deaths of 1/3 of the population of the time. But the disease disappeared. It re-emerged several times over the centuries, but never once caused the end of the world. The world got on.

If there is to be any significant change, it will likely be salutary. Just as the Plague left a labor shortage, contributing to higher wages and better working conditions, so any major changes brought about by COVID may be beneficial.

[Phoenix61]

10. All excellent points.

I think the work-from-home trend is permanent.. The technology has been there for years but businesses weren’t willing to make the investments necessary to make it happen. Covid forced their hand. This will have a huge impact on how cities are structured. Urban commercial real estate is already feeling the impact. I think the political impact of this will be a lot of those “citified liberals” will move to the country and take their ideas and votes with them.

[Politicub]

14. Planning is the balm for alarmism.

Lack of planning and preparation are why it was so hard in the U.S. to ramp up to manage through the early days of the pandemic.

Viruses don’t care about wishful thinking.

[Neema]

8. I think we will have to think differently about how we live and move in the world.

Once I'm vaccinated and things open up, I will start traveling again and enjoying the things I used to enjoy. But I plan to wear a mask when I fly for the foreseeable future. And likely in other situations as well. I will just have one (or several) with me at all times and will mask up whenever I feel I'm in a situation where I have a higher risk of exposure. I've started carrying a bag around with me that has essentials I didn't used to carry. In the past I often would leave the house with my phone, keys and wallet. Now I make sure I have extra masks, hand sanitizer, a thin blanket for sitting outside (since I haven't sat indoors anywhere but my house in a year), etc.

[Phoenix61]

9. There is every reason to believe we will get a handle on this.

All pandemics eventually come to an end. Our immune system adjusts even as viruses mutate. The knowledge of how our immune system actually works has increased tremendously over the past couple of years. Childhood leukemia used to be a death sentence. Now the 5 year survival rate is 90%.

[NNadir]

11. The reporter is incapable of understanding the novelty...

....of the RNA vaccines.

The sequence of the Moderna active was synthesized within days of publication of the viral RNA sequence by Chinese scientists.

With regulatory streamlining, it should be straight forward to modify the vaccines, making this disease at worst, something like annual flu shots now that the production of the ionizable lipids is scaling.

Of course many antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists will win the Darwin award, but sane people should do well.

[Turbineguy]

12. We could enshrine it in a Constitutional Amendment

like add it to the 2nd Amendment.

That way we can keep those gubmint CDC busybodies from messing with our freedumb.

[BGBD]

13. Pretty terrible article

The idea that 15% vaccination rates would stem an outbreak are absurd. Get back to me when we are at 60 or 70% vaccination and we will see how things look.


And we will get there. I know hard core Republicans who said they were not going to get the vaccine, but then took it the first time it was offered to them.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. Same Here

11 months ago, about 8 guys at the golf course were on the "hoax, no big deal, just the flu" train.
Of the 8, 7 of them, plus their spouses, are vaccinated.
Funny how that attitude changed when it's killed 20 times a bad flu year, isn't it?

[BannonsLiver]

15. We must also start understanding there are people invested in it not ending.

Whether because it has enriched them, or brought media attention to them, there are those who would just assume it not end.

[flamingdem]

18. Brazil is becoming a factory for variants

as are other countries that lack the leadership or vaccines needed to stem Covid.

The "P1" variant is even more virulent that the British variant already predominant in Florida.

This might be a pandemic for a while longer and slowly become endemic.

[Chakaconcarne]

20. Yeah, I don't know......

I believe herd immunity isn't needed after every person in the US has been offered a vaccine.

This will evolve into flu like management.... People who get the vaccine and people who don't...

I think once you get any COVID vaccine you will have enough protection against variants to keep you out of the hospital.

[Initech]

23. I have never had a flu shot my entire life.

I don't get flus, I don't get colds, I don't get pneumonia. And I have been in some extremely large crowds. But you can bet that I got the COVID vaccine. I had my first shot on Monday. Second one is on the 20th.

[Initech]

22. We're still fighting the flu 100 years later.

But it's evolved into a less virulent version of what it was in 1918. Same thing will happen to COVID. Will we still be fighting it 100 years from now? Yes. But will it be as deadly? No. And the vaccines will get better with each generation and they can be adapted to combat new variants.