Dr. Osterholm: Americans will be living with the coronavirus for decades

[bronxiteforever]

MarketWatch
Published: July 31, 2020 at 6:08 a.m. ET
By Jaimy Lee
Dr. Michael Osterholm, epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, recognized the coronavirus would become a pandemic as early as January

... Osterholm’s viewpoint is sobering. The 67-year-old expects the novel coronavirus to be present for the rest of his life. He doesn’t believe the wave theory (a first wave, a lull, followed by other waves) will apply to this pandemic. “That’s not what’s happening here,” he told MarketWatch in an interview.


MarketWatch: I saw a piece in The Atlantic this week and I thought they positioned it well. They described it as the beginning of the end.

Osterholm: It won’t be. We will be dealing with this virus forever. Effective and safe vaccines and hopefully ones with some durability will be very important, even critical tools, in fighting it. But the whole world is going to be experiencing COVID-19 ‘til the end of time. We’re not going to be vaccinating our way out of this to eight-plus billion people in the world right now. And if we don’t get durable immunity, we’re potentially looking at revaccination on a routine basis, if we can do that. We’ve really got to come to grips with actually living with this virus, for at least my lifetime, and at the same time, it doesn’t mean we can’t do a lot about it.

... They’re not waves. We’ve never had a pandemic due to coronavirus before. We’ve had influenza pandemics. With an influenza pandemic, you do get true waves, meaning you get a first big peak of cases, then the numbers come down substantially without any human intervention...At this point, that’s not what’s happening here.

This is like a forest fire, full steam ahead. And wherever there’s human wood to burn, it’ll do it. What we see, though, are these spikes in cases where human mitigation strategies ended, or they’re not adhering to them ... This is just one constant pressure that’s occurring....

...is there durable immunity? Because herd immunity is based on the concept that once you have immunity, it stays. One of our goals has been to postpone as many cases we can until the vaccine is available and use that as your means for getting 50% to 70% of the population protected. But we don’t know what immunity means for either natural disease or vaccine. Herd immunity is still, in some ways, that theoretical state to get to but we’re not sure we ever will.


More here.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/osterholm-americans-will-be-living-with-the-coronavirus-for-decades-2020-07-30

[Botany]

1. This is like a forest fire, full steam ahead. And wherever there's human wood to burn, it'll do it.

Yup!

1st million about 100 days
2nd million about 45 days
3rd million about 25 days
4th million about 15 days.

[bronxiteforever]

2. +1 Those stats you posted are also sobering.

[Botany]

12. "The Beast" is spreading faster than we can make tests for it now.

Dr. Michael Osterholm is one of "the good ones" to listen to about C-19.

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. The traitor in the White House has doomed us to decades of horror

As has all of those people who relentlessly bashed Hillary Clinton in 2016

[bronxiteforever]

5. At a time when we needed a POTUS with respect

for science; we got a proudly ignorant bankrupt casino owner instead.

[magicarpet]

7. A Reality TV star who fabricates reality.

Who coulda known.

[bronxiteforever]

8. +1 well said!

[bamagal62]

10. This.

[Eliot Rosewater]

13. And he's sick and twisted

And he’s sick twisted and so is each and every single one of his disgusting sycophant followers

[Newest Reality]

4. The US failure:

MarketWatch: What do you think the biggest failure in the U.S. response has been?

Osterholm: We’ve failed because we declared victory over the virus when we had no business doing so. This virus has been poised to be transmitted in our communities, and we thought we had done enough to get it down. It’s like a fire crew. “I only put out half the forest fire but you know, I put out half so we’re done.” And then look what happened. It’s burned more acres since we gave up than it did before we gave up.

[bronxiteforever]

6. +1 And some Americans believe the forest fire is a hoax

[Newest Reality]

9. Which stokes the flames and keeps it spreading.

[bronxiteforever]

15. Sad and true.

[Laelth]

11. Do we have herd immunity to the common cold?

Do we have a vaccine for the common cold? A coronavirus is much more like a common cold than influenza or any other disease we have attempted to control. The coronavirus is a type of common cold that is more contagious and packs a much more severe punch. Sometimes, the punch can be deadly. I think that Dr. Osterholm is right. SARS-CoV-19 isn’t going away. Eventually, we’re going to have to learn to live with it.

-Laelth

[bronxiteforever]

16. +1 This scenario seems probable.

[Chainfire]

14. That is certainly a rosy prediction....

Assuming the Doctor is correct, while we learn to live with this virus, you have to wonder how many new Covid's will come to pass. One per year, one per decade, one per century? Who knows?

It is not beyond the realm of possibility that emerging viruses would eventually overwhelm our ability to react. This one, while not nearly as deadly as it could be, has dropped our GDP by perhaps a third and has threatened the medical systems with being overwhelmed. If Covid-21 emerged, where would that leave us? We survive by our ability to produce, if we are no longer able to produce then the outcome is predictable.

I try to prepare for the things I can prepare for and do not spend too much time worrying about things that are beyond my control, but the "what ifs" are interesting, to contemplate. Some really good science fiction should emerge from the minds of people living through this pandemic.

[Laelth]

17. Gracious!

If we were to be hit with a new plague, right now, in the midst of the current pandemic, we might start recording deaths in the tens of millions. Right now we’re measuring them in the tens of thousands. Another plague on top of this one would be catastrophic.

We shall see what we see, but I am tempted to recall the wisdom of the late, great Molly Ivins who, when were suffering and in despair, reminded us to count our blessings because, she said, “Things can ALWAYS get worse.”

-Laelth

[Chainfire]

18. Not a gloom and doom person

but statistically, sooner or later, we will be hit with the proverbial "Crossfire Hurricane" of overlapping viruses. Or a combination of virus and natural or man-made catastrophe. Hopefully, but not yet in evidence, we will learn some lessons from this current pandemic that will help us to prepare for the next one. We will see, in November, if we have learned not to put the Idiot's Bastard Son, in charge of the nation and expect him or her to deal rationally with disaster, natural or otherwise.