[mschuster91]

> There is a reason economists are scolded left and right, and it's because of ludicrous claims like this.

Ludicrous? Not at all. With evidence of people re-infecting themselves with different strains of coronavirus appearing (https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-reinfections-confirmed-in-...), we are looking at years of dealing with a deadly pandemic - which means that anything regarding travel and major events is out of the question for a long time, and that assumes that people religiously vaccine themselves (a bold assumption given the rise of conspiracy myths about "vaccines being used to implant mind control chips" and further absurd).

That in turn has many effects: economies like Croatia which are dependant on foreign tourism will be straight fucked, they will not survive without massive aid - while the EU may prop up at least their governments, the situation for other primarily tourist economies is even worse. The effect will also hit many industries and their supply chains - most obviously plane makers and car makers, both of which are huge cash cows and mega employers, as demand from industry (airplanes) and private consumers falls to rock bottom (people will hoard all money they can).

To make it worse, Chinese demand of its rising middle class has been the thing that propped both their and our economy - in fact, depending on manufacturer, anything from 24-40% of cars sold in 2018 went to China. And that's just cars. With the trade war looming to escalate (which is one of the few things of Trump that were an actually good idea) and that no matter if Biden or Trump wins, China won't prop up the world economy again, Europe is too busy to save its own butts, the US is too much in debt plus its social construct is falling apart left and right...

[nradov]

Reinfections aren't a serious concern. Symptoms tend to be much less severe the second time due to the actions of immune system memory cells. SARS-CoV-2 is just like every other coronavirus in that regard. For example see the natural history of the OC43 coronavirus.

[mschuster91]

> Reinfections aren't a serious concern

They are, because reinfected people can infect people that have not had corona before and it makes vaccine success rates lower (similar to the seasonal flu).

In the essence it will lead to yet another attempt of "herd immunity" and a shitload of deaths.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Experts and health officials were already expecting vaccines to be only 50-75% effective, so this isn't new information.

That's what's so frustrating to me about the "herd immunity" discourse. Health officials have consistently said there's no way the disease is going to be eradicated, but because of the way it gets discussed, a lot of smart people have become convinced that the goal of a vaccine is to make sure nobody catches it.