Will the Covid-19 ever go away?

[kentuck]

The Flu epidemic of 1918 never disappeared. It is still with us in some form or other, 103 years later.

https://www.history.com/news/1918-flu-pandemic-never-ended

(snip)
An unthinkable 50 to 100 million people worldwide died from the 1918-1919 flu pandemic commonly known as the “Spanish Flu.” It was the deadliest global pandemic since the Black Death, and rare among flu viruses for striking down the young and healthy, often within days of exhibiting the first symptoms. In the United States, the 1918 flu pandemic lowered the average life expectancy by 12 years.

What’s even more remarkable about the 1918 flu, say infectious disease experts, is that it never really went away. After infecting an estimated 500 million people worldwide in 1918 and 1919 (a third of the global population), the H1N1 strain that caused the Spanish flu receded into the background and stuck around as the regular seasonal flu.

But every so often, direct descendants of the 1918 flu combined with bird flu or swine flu to create powerful new pandemic strains, which is exactly what happened in 1957, 1968 and 2009. Those later flu outbreaks, all created in part by the 1918 virus, claimed millions of additional lives, earning the 1918 flu the odious title of “the mother of all pandemics.”

[twodogsbarking]

1. Is the worst yet to come?

[Scrivener7]

2. Yes, but it will go away. Delta is so virulent that it will get everyone who is not vaccinated.

Once that happens, the virus will not have any more food.

[Irish_Dem]

3. But everyone has had the flu and it keeps returning every year.

[Scrivener7]

6. H1N1 does not return every year, and when it does return it is in a vastly reduced

virulence.

The current H1N1 virus is a very distant relative of the Spanish Flu.

Annual flu death numbers are much fewer than we have been told. As it turns out, the CDC does not count actual flu deaths because most states don't report actual flu deaths. The CDC takes the number of ALL respiratory deaths and puts that number through an algorithm. Basically they guess. And their guess does not jibe at all with clinical observation. Also, if we were to extrapolate for the nation from those states that do report actual flu deaths (like Connecticut) we would end up with a fraction of the number of deaths that are routinely reported by the CDC.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/

[Irish_Dem]

7. People may not die from the flu in big numbers, but we still don't want to get sick every winter.

[Scrivener7]

9. Yes, but what we experience as the flu now bears no resemblance to the pandemic version.

We lived normal lives with the flu, in its present forms, circulating among us.

[Tomconroy]

4. Probably going to be a tough winter but not as bad as last

Year. People don't mention it much but the delta spread may be giving a bunch of unvaccinated people some natural immunity. Although the US has had something near 40 million identified Covid cases, as of July 1 the CDC estimates about 120 million have actually been infected
That number will be much higher come Out 1. We don't know a whole lot about natural immunity but there have been some recent studies that says it's quite good. Maybe delta will be the last wave and it settles into something manageable

[Blues Heron]

5. Not if people don't mask like they should

Vaccines are one thing but it's the masks and distancing that block the virus from spreading.

[Botany]

8. Not for a long time. America has a population where "22% self-identify as anti-vaxxers."

That means 72 million Americans are going to be willing hosts to the virus and they will help to
spread the disease because of their own ignorance, right wing & Russian propaganda, anti science
thinking, fear of the vaccine among some of the black, Hispanic, and white populations, and the Christian
Evangelical Taliban nonsense that too many in America buy into.

Time for vaccine passports, masking, making the anti vaxxer pay more for their medical insurance &
medical care, and not giving any advanced medical care for those that refused to get the vaccine.

The world is gonna be in 2 groups those that got the vaccine or those that had the disease so they
have some antibodies and the unvaccinated that will get it or have it now.

**********

Citing studies showing that 15% of Americans believe QAnon conspiracies and 22% self-identify as anti-vaxxers, the CNBC piece describes the special challenges posed to educators "by the combination of misinformation on social media and a growing population of duped and radicalized parents."

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215830924

[Scrivener7]

10. The best we can hope is that it spreads hard and fast among the unvaxxed, and burns itself out.

There is a silver lining to Delta. It is so virulent that it is eclipsing new variants. If it can do its work fast enough, we may get through this without the appearance of a variant that is vaccine resistant.

Delta basically starved Lambda and made it disappear. Hopefully it will do the same to Mu.

[Botany]

11. I am all for making "tent cities" for the unvaccianted who get the disease and just giving them ...

... food, water, palliative care, and all the pain killers they want. There is a reason we do not see
wards of kids in iron lungs because of polio anymore and that is because vaccines work but these
free DUMB idiots do not or will not understand that every unvaccinated person no mater where they
are in the world are a potential hosts and incubator for new mutations (variants).

I am all over these selfish idiots and political leaders who took what was and still should be a medical
science/public health problem and turned it into a political issue.

BTW America and the world would not be going through this pandemic nightmare if Hillary Clinton
hadn't had the Presidency stolen from her. President Obama left the personal, protocols, international
agreements and alliances, and materials in place that in all likelihood would have stopped the virus in
China but TFG got rid of all of that "stuff." And now Trump and his idiots see masking, vaccinations,
social distancing, and public health measures as indictment of Trump and his MAGA followers so they
fight those actions.

sorry to

[Scrivener7]

12. No, I agree with every bit of your rant. And the tent city idea is one whose time

arrived a long time ago. We should do it.

And yes, imagine where we would be today if Hillary had not been kneecapped.

[Botany]

14. Knowing that we are turning away people who really need hospital/ICU space because ...

... all that space, medical supplies, and medical professional's time is being tied up because
those idiots refused to get vaccinated is galling. Take the Oklahoma panhandle and the top
50 miles of Tex ASS below it and build C-19 tent cities there, dig large pits for their bodies,
and don't let anybody who has the disease leave that area until they are no longer infectious
or they take the vaccine.

Or just build the tent cities outside of the hospitals. Now if you are a child or an adult who
got the vaccine and have the disease then give 'em all the care that you can.

We really are in a war. New 51K in Texas schools since the start of the school year.

There are more than 51,000 student COVID cases in the state so far since they started tracking on August 13. That number is way up from the 18,000 recorded just two weeks ago.

There are also more than 13,000 staff cases.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/schools-prepare-as-covid-19-cases-nearly-triple-in-texas-in-last-3-weeks/2735165/

[GoCubsGo]

13. Not at the rate we're going.

Parts of the country are doing the exact opposite of what needs to be done to get rid of this thing once and for all. Until that changes, we're stuck with this thing. Fuck those idiots.