[mrtksn]

The virus didn't gave us an ETA of its demise. It will probably stay longer than ideal since not every country in the Europe has high vaccination rates as Portugal.

It's seriously puzzling to see he immense belief in the governments power. How on earth one can demand a specific day for removal of management tools against the natural processes?

[jokethrowaway]

It's not about the virus disappearing, it's about governments accepting that people die of diseases and COVID is just another one.

[mrtksn]

I spoke to the government, they concur. People in fact die from diseases that are not limited to Covid-19. What now?

[chitowneats]

You all stop attempting to engineer human society around slowing covid spread? We look at the problems confronting us holistically? I could go on but really this is it.

[mrtksn]

I hereby officially seize my attempts of engineering human society. What are we going to do to spread the virus? Would you suggest vaccine mandates so that we can go back to normal, removing restrictions to travel and human contact?

[wait_a_minute]

Dr Fauci and other public administrators and workers have told us multiple times since last year that herd immunity would be achieved if 60% to 70% of people were vaccinated. Since we know that antibodies from past infection are as good or better than two shots of Pfizer [0], and since we also know that most people in the USA have antibodies from one source or another by now [1]...we do in the United States have a basis with which to determine the "eta of its demise."

We just seem to lack some political will to be more expedient in declaring the pandemic endemic and herd immunity achieved. In any case, when I look at the same situation in Europe, there are plenty of countries that are in the same boat. Population antibody levels by now are higher than what was claimed as the threshold needed to avert disaster. We've all been doing that.

So it's insufficient to keep accepting "probably longer than idea." That is too vague and nebulous and allows too much to go wrong. Government has more power than you realize and its government imposing these "management tools" as a cudgel against free movement and liberty. The situation in Australia [2], for example, should alarm everyone - especially those on the side of granting the powers that be basically unlimited license to do whatever they want to solve this.

If the ship has sailed due to the antibodies, then what need is there for this vagueness?

[0] - https://www.science.org/content/article/having-sars-cov-2-on...

"The natural immune protection that develops after a SARS-CoV-2 infection offers considerably more of a shield against the Delta variant of the pandemic coronavirus than two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a large Israeli study that some scientists wish came with a “Don’t try this at home” label. The newly released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than never-infected, vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19."

[1] - miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article253987048.html

"More than 80% of Americans have coronavirus antibodies acquired through infection or vaccination, according to a new study of over 1.4 million blood donations across the U.S."

[2] - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-a...

Please read this in its entirety and actually ponder it deeply.

[mrtksn]

You understand that we are not entering into a contract with your public officials in exchange of ending the pandemic, right?

It's absurd to claim that some public officials failed on their contractual obligations by not ending the pandemic despite the public delivering on their antibody obligations. It doesn't work like that.

What happens is, people start getting sick and die. Public officials in charge of stopping this prepare an action plan based on the information available to them. They need to balance their plan according to the resources available and scientific advice available. Unfortunately, the resources are finite and the scientific advice can be patchy and change over time as the scientists study the new microbe.

That's why you have public officials saying that the pandemic will end at %60 but it turns out you need even more immunity. They say that X work but it turns out X is not as effective as Y or it might be even harmful.

I'm shocked that you see the public officials and scientists almighty infallible beings. Wow, is that some kind of religion?

If they failed at something, it could be due incompetence or expectations being beyond what humanly is possible or maybe they screwed up at communicating it or maybe they even lied on what's possible but there's no logical construct where public officials choose to continue the spread of the virus despite the public achieving immunity beyond the promised levels.

The premise of all this is simply appalling.