In the last few weeks you probably had the same conversation I was having:
“We’re all going to get it, right?”
“Yes.”
Call it fatalism. We call it acceptance. Call it spiritual preparation.
With the Omicron variant of COVID-19 prevalent worldwide, it is only a matter of time before all of us are exposed to COVID.
On Wednesday, CDC director Rochelle Warrensky said The number of new cases has exploded, As with hospitalization, and the surge has not yet peaked.The good news is that the new variant seems to be the cause Less serious illness When can not be displayed It attacks the lungs as badly as the previous variants did.
Many of us have come to hear about infected friends and family every day from knowing the few people who got sick or sadly died even with this insidious virus. Most people in my circle are vaccinated. Adults are being boosted. Therefore, when they get a breakthrough infection, they feel almost nothing or have the flu for a few days.
Of course, the anecdote is not data, but our experience and thinking about COVID is definitely changing.
“In the next decade, if you give or take years, everyone on the planet will be infected with the virus,” said Vinay Prasad, a hematologist at the University of California, San Francisco. I wrote last fall..
Some skeptics, but this seems to be a new scientific consensus.
“I don’t think it’s a natural conclusion that everyone gets infected with COVID-19.” UCLA Infectious Disease Expert Ottoyan He told the “Today” show last month. “It really depends on what we do with regard to public health reactions and vaccinations.”
of course, Exposure Being infected with a virus is not the same as becoming Infected.. Vaccinated people are unlikely If you are exposed, you will be infected, and if you are infected, you will be less likely to become seriously ill. Walensky said: “Sure, your results depend on your vaccination status. If you are not vaccinated, you are 20 times more likely to die of COVID than if you were boosted. If you are not vaccinated compared to if you were. “
Get vaccinated.
one year ago, Journal researched by Nature More than 100 immunologists, infectious disease researchers, and virologists have believed that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can be eliminated.
According to a Nature article, 90% believe the virus is “endemic.” This means “will continue to circulate in the pockets of the world’s population for the next few years.”
“Endemic is now often used to explain the point at which the risk of the virus drops to the level of the flu, and even to the level of the common cold.” Sarah Chang I wrote last month in the Atlantic Ocean. “The effects of pathogens are much more predictable and stable in the case of endemic diseases.”
Last July, President Biden declared, “We have an advantage over this virus.” It seemed like we had it at the time.
Nevertheless, the virus survived. The delta variant appeared in September, followed by Omicron in November.
Increasingly, it is said that we need to learn to live with this and understand how to better manage it so as not to experience the cataclysmic shutdown and turmoil of the first year of the pandemic. increase.
3 public health experts He advised Biden during the transition to address this “new normality” by creating a national strategy to address life with the coronavirus, rather than expecting it to be eradicated. I urged the president.
“COVID-19 stays here,” said oncology and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, and infectious disease specialist Celine Gounder on Thursday at the Journal of the American Medical.・ I wrote to Asun.
They write that in order for the public health system, economy and society to function well, it is necessary to set specific goals for managing COVID-19 and communicate them to Americans. This includes creating benchmarks for imposing and relaxing restrictions, and rethinking how to deal with future variants and new viruses.
Good advice, but of course, this work didn’t go into the crazy politics of everything related to the coronavirus. This is certainly a formidable obstacle to implementing a national strategy.
But it hinted at some of our dysfunctions and called for a restructuring of “trust in public health agencies and a belief in collective action to serve public health.” Sky.
What intrigued me most was their demand for quality, which many of us demand from leaders. “Humility is essential,” they write. (How can I read it and not think immediately? The fierce momentum of a former man At the dawn of a pandemic that currently infects more than 300 million people worldwide, “You have 15 people, and within a few days 15 will be close to zero.”)
Much is still unknown about the new coronavirus. The length of immunity given by the disease or previous infection, whether antivirals can prevent long COVIDs, whether bugs become seasonal, or more deadly and more contagious variants Whether to evolve.
not to mention Possibility of appearance Yet another new coronavirus.
This story was originally Los Angeles Times..