Whoopsi ... don't let facts get in your way ... Covid is up

Oculus Spirit [97677]

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It does run in cycles.

Jul 20, 2021, 6:06 PM

The reason for that is actually why covid is not technically a pandemic at this point IMO. It is basically working just like influenza, only it's new/worse. But it operates/functions much the same way. Influenza is not a pandemic. New strains of influenza, our bodies have never seen before, ARE pandemics. Covid is the same way, only each strain is new to us, so every new strain that gets traction becomes a pandemic. We're on our third covid pandemic in the US now. If this had been an influenza pandemic, it would be over now.

The cycles are caused by strains becoming dominant in a country or region, or around the whole planet, then dying down. When you see a spike in cases, and then it falls just as fast, that's because herd immunity, to THAT STRAIN, has been reached, in that community. It then fades away. But over time, the antibodies also fade away. Worse the spike, the lower and longer the period of calmness. But eventually the virus mutates elsewhere, and antibodies wane as most people have no clue they ever had them. Those who are hospitalized and get severely sick, keep them for years. But the vast majority keep them for a few months. Seems to be around 6-8 months overall between cycles, again depending on how bad the spike in cases actually is. After a period, the virus comes back, with a new strain different from before, and as antibodies wane, it comes back.

As such, this doesn't end. It "ends" when it becomes like influenza, and that will only happen when we've all had covid, and had it again, and been vaccinated, and had it anyway, and have seen everything it can throw at us. WHENEVER THAT HAPPENS, it will fade away to be a common cold, or maybe flu, and it will become seasonal.

So you will either get covid, or a vaccine, or both. But we really need to understand it's not a disease of absolutes, but of degrees. You clinically "get" covid when you get a certain viral load present on a swab. And there are degrees of exposure, degrees of illness, and degrees of antibodies, and degrees of immunity, all related. There are degrees of spikes in cases, and levels of low cases and calm periods. Between masking and vaccines unevenly distributed, we have given covid actually more reasons to evolve to be more transmissible. It has not killed enough people yet to evolve to be weaker. All the evolutionary benefit is on increasing transmission, and there is little benefit to reducing severity as it has all it needs to spread. Which is why I think there will be no boosters, and why we are going to let this run now. About 35% of new covid cases will end up being vaccinated people. Some will be sick. A few (7%ish) will be hospitalized. 1% will die. Unvaccinated, well, it will be bad. As such, we need everyone vaccinated, then let it ride. That gets us to this being like influenza quicker than lockdowns, and other measures.

This is what Biden knows, what everyone knows really. Get the freaking vaccine because we're going to let this go. The vaccine will keep you alive, and when you get it after the vaccine, it will be similar to your second round. After that you let it go and it eventually dies down. I still think we get our 2-3 million deaths eventually, mainly because people didn't take vaccines. With the vaccines, you could probably halve that number.

Just think about influenza. At some point in time, it started and jumped to humans. It was probably a pandemic initially like covid. And it probably took a large toll on the planet's population. But over time it died down to be a nuisance every year, with only very rare times when a new strain comes along that becomes a pandemic because no one has been exposed to it. This is like the birth of influenza as I see it. When children born today die in 80 years, covid will still be around, in some form. Might be a cold, might be like the flu, might be like covid I guess. And the children born today will be the ones who live with it, and eventually tame it to be whatever it will become.