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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDoctors warn that Covid will become endemic and people need to learn to live with it
LONDON More and more physicians and public health officials are warning that even with the mass rollout of safe and effective vaccines, Covid may permanently establish itself.
White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel and World Health Organization executive director of the Health Emergencies Program Dr. Mike Ryan have said in recent weeks that the coronavirus may never go away.
To date, more than 107 million people worldwide have contracted Covid-19, with 2.36 million deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
David Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, warned in October that the virus appeared to be on course to become endemic. He reaffirmed his position this week during a webinar for think tank Chatham House.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/doctors-warn-that-covid-will-become-endemic-and-people-need-to-learn-to-live-with-it/ar-BB1dCMBV?ocid=DELLDHP&li=BBnb7Kz
Irish_Dem
(47,226 posts)abqtommy
(14,118 posts)a few) I said last February that we can survive this. I see no reason to modify that statement.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Fortunately, the two people in Dr.Faucis lab that developed the Moderna vaccine were working on a MERS vaccine (specifically Dr. Kissmayer Corbett) when SARS-COV-2 barged its way to the front of the line. There are four people that are almost sure to win a Nobel Prize, Dr. Corbett, Dr. Campbell (her boss and adviser), and the Professor and his Post-Doc assistant who developed the methodology for making the Coronavirus spike protein.
dweller
(23,649 posts)on Polio ... that took what 30+ years to control?
😖
✌🏻
llmart
(15,548 posts)Some countries still have polio, albeit mostly third world countries. But yes, it took more than three decades to mostly eradicate it from our country. At one time the experts thought measles was eradicated also, but then it reared it's ugly head once again when some people wouldn't vaccinate.
Initech
(100,097 posts)We're still dealing with influenza, smallpox and cholera - all of which were major pandemics at one point. We'll get drugs, better vaccines and treatments to deal with this in the coming years.
COVID will most likely just mutate into a seasonal menace that we'll have to deal with much like the flu or pneumonia, and that's probably what is happening with the South African and British variants of the virus - they're more contagious but less deadly.
Maru Kitteh
(28,342 posts)Initech
(100,097 posts)I think that I remember reading this here a couple of years ago.
Maru Kitteh
(28,342 posts)Fort-Knox level security labs on the planet under multiple, diverse and redundant layers of safety.
Initech
(100,097 posts)If only we could do the same with COVID!
Maru Kitteh
(28,342 posts)was worn down to a bare post or the Earth's molten core was cooking my feet if we could just bury it in a secret location somewhere.
Maru Kitteh
(28,342 posts)know if that shit was still around anywhere on the planet.
It's gone.
NutmegYankee
(16,201 posts)Basically pus was rubbed into a cut to cause a hopefully mild case. Famously George Washington forced the Continental Army to be inoculated in this manner.
Maru Kitteh
(28,342 posts)Thank goodness we don't have to do that anymore! Not really sorry I missed the days of rubbing pus on my patients. On purpose.
NutmegYankee
(16,201 posts)Infection with cowpox served as a vaccine since that disease was so mild, but infection also prevented smallpox, until modern medicine made a vaccine.
Im very eager for my vaccine. Even with the new variants, the vaccine virtually eliminates hospitalization or death. Sure, you might get symptoms with the S. Africa strain, but its aches and fever at home, not a visit to the ICU.
AwakeAtLast
(14,132 posts)I had to get a booster shot because we had a mini epidemic in Central Indiana about six years ago.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)We'll manage once the vaccine is out more widely.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,678 posts)Initech
(100,097 posts)And I'm totally OK with making that sacrifice!
shanti
(21,675 posts)A lot of us get the flu shot yearly too.
Quixote1818
(28,955 posts)The Spanish Flu is still with us. I don't see that this is a big deal unless you don't get the vaccine and could still get a deadly reaction. As the human race gets used to it then it just becomes another common cold along with the other 150 varieties.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/09/spanish-flu-pandemic-centenary-first-world-war
Initech
(100,097 posts)Last edited Fri Feb 12, 2021, 11:54 PM - Edit history (1)
We still have cases of cholera and the flu pop up every once in a while. And those were major pandemics in the last few centuries. Hell there were even cases of the Black Plague popping up from time to time.
Quixote1818
(28,955 posts)I work in the schools so I get sick usually a couple of times typically. Makes me want to wear a mask more. LOL
womanofthehills
(8,745 posts)Its eradicated as a poster above said.
Initech
(100,097 posts)WarGamer
(12,463 posts)magicarpet
(14,160 posts)I'll clean it when I shower. Could I stick a toothbrush in my ear and wiggle it around to the proper compartment so I can brush my teeth ?
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Over several millennia it will embed itself among us like the four common cold coronaviruses before it did. The only question is how many people will die during that process. We have one major advantage over previous humanoids that faced each of the previous four common cold coronaviruses, we have technological expertise that will allow modern medicine to limit deaths, if people cooperate (which is not a given).
TigressDem
(5,125 posts)Epidemic vs. Pandemic
A simple way to know the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic is to remember the P in pandemic, which means a pandemic has a passport. A pandemic is an epidemic that travels.
Epidemic vs. Endemic
But whats the difference between epidemic and endemic? An epidemic is actively spreading; new cases of the disease substantially exceed what is expected. More broadly, its used to describe any problem thats out of control, such as the opioid epidemic. An epidemic is often localized to a region, but the number of those infected in that region is significantly higher than normal. For example, when COVID-19 was limited to Wuhan, China, it was an epidemic. The geographical spread turned it into a pandemic.
Endemics, on the other hand, are a constant presence in a specific location. Malaria is endemic to parts of Africa. Ice is endemic to Antarctica.
So like Chicken Pox and Malaria there will be places that Covid continues to need CONSTANT vaccination...
tRump, always thinking of his friends with "give-aways"....
"Yeah, Big Pharma," I thought you could use a boost in sales. There you go."
1/5 Million had to DIE to make money for Big Pharma. tRump just shrugs,
"Well, they are just the Sheeple anyway, you know herd immunity."
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)being will always have SARS-COV-2 circulating among us, regardless of where we live. It has jumped into our species, it will stay unless there is some extraordinary effort to eliminate it. But such an outcome isnt a bad deal, modern medicine has the tools to deal with endemic to human beings viruses.
TigressDem
(5,125 posts)So from ONE stupid man REFUSING to deal with the Pandemic like a human being instead of a political extremist...
HOW MANY WILL HAVE TO DIE? 475 Thousand so far. (Just US deaths)
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=covid+deaths+in+us
630 Thousand by June 2021 is projected (Just US deaths)
https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view=total-deaths&tab=trend
30 years from now, will people look back at tRump in the horror that we do?
Seeing as the BEST way down from this mess was to take it seriously from the beginning and NOT create Super Spreader Events to generate "herd immunity" which simply gave us the gift of COVID forever?
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Virus mutate fairly often. There are several paths that it can mutate to, (more infectious, less deadly), (less infectious, less deadly), (more infectious, deadlier), (less infectious, deadlier). From I understand from reading, either of the outcomes are possible, but a virus generally take the first path of becoming more infectious and less deadly, because that allows it to spread more efficiently.
TigressDem
(5,125 posts)Yeah, they usually get less deadly in order to live, but then we can live with it and not have SO MANY DEATHS.
With a majority of THE ENTIRE WORLD trying to stop the spread of this disease, it is STILL kicking our asses.
Because of ignorance and greed.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Trump becoming president was proof positive. The rest of the free world is a lot more disciplined.
TigressDem
(5,125 posts)The party of the rich just wants to keep getting away with making the rest of US do the work while they reap the benefits.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)income inequality right now. Rich people believe that their gated communities, their elaborate hideaways, their bodyguards will protect them from anything, they have no clue of how foolish they are. What will protect them is insuring that every person in this country has a decent home, sufficient nutritious meals, good healthcare and income.
TigressDem
(5,125 posts)People think if someone else gets something that is less for me.... Short term, maybe.
BUT if everyone had enough money to pay their bills, buy food and have a safe place to live as a rock bottom standard, people wouldn't need to consider a lot of the illegal activity they do.
People who have no legal recourse to support themselves or their family they go to illegal ones.
MAKE IT EASIER for people to live in peace and make those that cause a ruckus pay for their crimes and pretty soon people will see the path of least resistance is to be law abiding.
Right now, being law abiding can still get you killed by the cops just for being black in the vicinity of a crime.
Right now, doing your appointed job under the law can get thousands of people trying to lynch you or beat you to death.
It's horrible that it is so difficult to simply obey the law.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)I have seen that many times in my life.
Wicked Blue
(5,848 posts)This thought gives me a great deal of hope.
I was in first grade when desperate parents lined up with their children to get the new polio immunization dispensed on sugar cubes. Before that time, polio was a nightmare. I can remember adults talking about so-and-so's daughter who was in an iron lung, or someone who had lost a child to polio.
I grew up in a time when there were no vaccines for measles, mumps or German measles (rubella). It was whispered that measles would leave you blind if you didn't stay in a darkened room the entire time you were sick. That mumps sometimes did something to boys so they couldn't have children. And German measles we all heard, could kill fetuses if their mothers caught it while they were pregnant. When someone caught German measles, people brought their daughters over to share a glass of water and catch it too. This, people knew, would protect the girls' future babies.
I remember when you had to have a chest x-ray and an antibody test to prove you didn't have tuberculosis, in order to get a job that involved handling food.
We don't even think about those diseases any more, but at one time they were deadly.
milestogo
(16,829 posts)Wicked Blue
(5,848 posts)Heck, kids can't go to school without proof of various immunizations.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)during the times that you discussed?
I believe one of the key differences today is how deep misinformation can penetrate society. In the 50s and 60s, even the 70s, the predominant source of information was newspapers, and editorial writers had massive sway, if they pushed a societal action, that put massive momentum behind it. Today, any yaBob with a computer and malice can start a lie that hooks millions of people almost instantly.
Wicked Blue
(5,848 posts)That was required by the state of NJ.
Incidentally, I worked as a newspaper reporter from the 1970s to 1990s.