[algorias]

There is no ongoing pandemic. There is now an endemic virus that's part of the regular rotation of pathogens that cause colds and flu, and covid doesn't seem particularly more dangerous than the rest (NB: influenza can be very nasty too! I'm not minimizing the harm of covid).

The pandemic was a unique situation because the entire world population was immuno-naive to covid. This is no longer the case; we all get exposed dozens of times per year and keep our natural immunity up.

[ridiskdkfjsl]

the distinction between pandemic and endemic is political and typically related to “we don’t care to contain it”. It’s not related to immunity levels. The interesting thing is that it used to be citizens of poorer countries who would be fodder, now it’s also the richer ones which I think says something about the state of those countries and progress in general

[LorenPechtel]

I wouldn't say so much that we don't care to contain it, but that pandemic means it's sweeping over a population, endemic means it's simply always present in the population without major swings in prevalence. Impossible to contain because it's already everywhere.

[ridiskdkfjsl]

‘impossible to’ doesn’t really fit into my idea of the HN crowd.

It’s cost/benefit and leaders took the ‘keep the graph going up and to the right next quarter’ approach to the long term risks.

Containment is of course possible, it would just take technology improvements for diagnostic tests and education and investment in air quality.

The calculation is that saving the years of ill health aren’t worth disrupting the status quo

Edit: What’s the difference between sweeping over and always present? Whether we test and report it in the news or not?

[mardifoufs]

So it's possible, but not a single country in the world managed to do it, even with wide range of different political parties in power, alignment, economic systems, etc? Like if literally every single combination that we have of those things couldn't manage effective containment....Well I guess your claim is a bit unfalsifiable don't you think?

And the "chart goes" up is such a strawman, I'm sure there's no real life downside or long term risk to just shut down everything for (2) more weeks... but whatever. That's such a western mentality, that only comes with the privilege of not living in an economically ruined part of the world.

There's a reason why doomers and "zero COVID" proponents are usually in the vast majority white, privileged, urban residents. I'm sure some vague, very broad "long term risks" that we still haven't seen concretely outside of a tiny minority (even if hundreds of millions were infected) are more important than the actual, proven, repeated risks of "charts going down".

In a way there's an odd parallel with antivaxxers who love to claim that in just a little bit more we will see the long term risks that came with the vaccine lol

[LorenPechtel]

Human compliance isn't perfect. Without China-level enforcement all lockdowns were leaky. There's a point of can't.

Furthermore, Covid has animal hosts. Even if the would could cooperate on completely stamping it out it would soon jump back from some animal. We simply have to live with it, take what precautions you want in your personal life but there's no point in society at large doing so.

(I do, however, think that medical facilities should be mask-required. But I think they should have been pre-pandemic, also.)

[LorenPechtel]

Covid causes a lot more deaths and a lot more damage than the flu. The flu is simply unpleasant for the vast majority of those who are otherwise reasonably healthy. Covid is still doing lasting damage to such people.

[immibis]

The difference between a pandemic and an endemic is that we don't want to stop an endemic. The virus is the same; the effects are the same but more averaged out with fewer peaks and troughs; they are just as bad.

[mlyle]

> is that we don't want to stop an endemic.

In my opinion, there's no significant levers left to push to affect infection rates much.

Of course, we should be doing everything reasonable we can to tamp down COVID (and the flu). But short of permanent quarantine or forcing anti-vaxxers to get vaccinated, I'm not sure what there's left to do.

(It would be nice if we could socially normalize and encourage wearing a mask when one feels slightly sick, too).

[wahnfrieden]

Don’t force people into offices, and solve a bit of the climate crisis too

[wahnfrieden]

Are you saying influenza and common cold also break down the blood brain barrier? Because that is what the new news is that the OP is about.

[algorias]

No, I'm saying that they also have a comparable rate of post-viral syndrome, and a comparable rate of severe cases. It is not clear at all at this point if covid will be able to do this much damage to the next generation (whose first exposure was as babies). Maybe this blood brain barrier thing is something that all viruses do if the immune system doesn't respond appropriately. I genuinely don't know.

[wahnfrieden]

No, this breakdown of the blood brain barrier is unique, which makes it curious to dismiss as "not more dangerous than the rest"