When Will the Pandemic Be Over? Maybe Never
by John Lawrence, February 10, 2021
We may just have to live with it, the same way we live with most other viruses. To eradicate COVID-19, it would have to be eliminated everywhere in the world. Not likely. To add insult to injury, COVID-19 is mutating - everywhere in the world and not only in humans. These viruses are also present in animals and are mutating there as well. What this means is that all the billions spent on vaccines so far may not have resulted in vaccines effective against the mutants. So billions more need to be spent for new vaccines that might not be effective against even newer mutants. It's a race against time, and humans may need to be vaccinated multiple times each one not effective against the newest mutant.
So we may have to learn to live with COVID. After all we have learned to live with a number of other viruses including flu, which also keeps mutating, HIV, poliomyelitis, yaws, dracunculiasis, malaria, measles, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis and cysticercosis. In some cases symptoms are treatable in an individual even though the virus may still be present as is the case with HIV. The only viruses that has been eradicated from the planet are smallpox and rinderpest. The fact that humans are the only reservoir for smallpox infection and that carriers did not exist, played a significant role in the eradication of smallpox. Most viruses are present in animals as well as humans and can harbor there for years before breaking out again in humans.
The modus operandi for a virus is that the more transmissable ones win out over the less transmissable ones. So the longer the virus exists in the population, the more the virus mutates and the more transmissable the virus gets. It does not necessarily get more deadly because if it killed its host right away, it wouldn't have as much time to infect others. So an ideal virus is one that hangs around in its host for a long length of time and then kills it. Being asymptomatic but transmissable for a long length of time also contributes to the success of the virus at least from the virus' viewpoint. Time magazine reports:
"That underscores wealthy countries’ responsibility to help developing nations get access to vaccines, Mazet says–for the benefit of the people who live there, of course, but also for the rest of the world. Even if one country achieves herd immunity, that status could be threatened by new viral mutations emerging from areas without broad vaccine coverage.
"The good news is we already know how to live with viruses, like seasonal influenza and the coronaviruses that cause the common cold. These diseases aren’t harmless–the flu infects millions of people in the U.S. each year and kills tens of thousands–but we have learned to minimize their damage."
So it becomes apparent that, if we don't help poorer countries, our own lives will never be out of danger. This is true for pandemics but it is also true in many other respects which should be perfectly obvious. Global poverty contributes to global disease. Going it alone or America First or ignoring the plight of our neighbors puts our own lives in peril. This is especially true for global warming. It is also true for the refugee crisis, childhood poverty all around the world and many other things. Climate refugees are already being created thanks to the effects of global warming. All these problems can only be addressed if not solved by global cooperation. In order to do this we must overlook things about other countries that we quibble with especially on the order of human rights. From their perspective we are human rights violators. What is important is not to bully or sanction other countries but to get along with them. Diplomacy and cooperation should be the order of the day. We must deemphasize military threats and solutions to world problems, defund the military and fund programs designed to counteract the real threats to ourselves and others.
"A better solution, many experts believe, is investing in the public-health infrastructure that went neglected before the COVID-19 pandemic, thus improving our ability to contain, respond to and monitor coronaviruses and other pathogens. “We need to invest in creating a healthier country [and world!], so when there is another virus, we will not be as unprepared as we were for this one,” Galea says.
...
"Recovering from the pandemic must also involve better science communication, to improve understanding of what must be done to curtail disease spread–and to persuade Americans to actually do it.
"Part of coexisting with COVID-19 may mean recognizing the need for cooperation [emphasis mine], whether it’s getting vaccinated to contribute to herd immunity; wearing a mask to prevent spreading the virus; consenting to regular testing or contact tracing to help with monitoring; or adhering to the guidelines set out by local health authorities if an outbreak emerges. Steven Taylor, author of The Psychology of Pandemics, says it’s possible for humans to adjust to such a scenario. Wearing masks felt bizarre to many in the Western world less than a year ago; now it’s second nature for most. “The virus will adapt to its host,” he says, “and we will adapt to the virus.”"
Yes, cooperation to provide herd immunity, to provide a herd response to global warming which also affects the whole herd and elimination of war and military responses to every nonexistent but imagined threat. We are all interconnected so that the more we cooperate, the more likely it will be that we will solve these global problems. If we don't the human race could be wiped out by ongoing pandemics, global warming and warfare. Let's spend our money on the real threats to mankind and not on a bloated military-industrial complex which is proving on a daily basis that it is ineffective in confronting the real problems of mankind.
