There is AFAIK no evidence to think that the latter will happen, with any known strains.
The hospital A&E waiting rooms are filling up, with mums and their small kids, sneezing and having a temperature, and nearly all have a normal cold, but “mum is worried”…
That issue is compounded by perpetual difficulties with seeing a GP, and made worse recently by GPs going “phone appointment only”, and now they have realised they actually really rather like that mode of working, and there was even a move to abandon personal visits completely (for the initial appointment) which fortunately got squashed. You can get a GP appointment but only as a 2nd one, and you have to say it is urgent.
So a lot of people have abandoned the GP system (years ago) and go with their ingrowing toenail straight to A&E and harrass the doctors there…
Cobalt wrote:
Yes, the extremely onerous requirement to wear masks indoors in public places. Oh, the humanity!
Interestingly, polls in Switzerland indicate that “75% of the population” wish to continue wearing masks in some conditions “rather than getting the flu or Covid”. Maybe there is hope for mankind yet.
Cobalt wrote:
The big question is – is this now a harmless disease in the vaccinated or otherwise immunised, or will this lead to a wave of hospitalisations and deaths.
Absolutely. It will all depend on this. With the vaccination rates we have in the UK or Israel, the question is whether the non-vaccinated people will create enough hospitalisations to be a problem.
Peter wrote:
Which ones? None in the UK. If you got two vaccinations, you can basically forget all about it and carry on as normal.
There are violently opposing opinions to that. The question really is: What is the effect of the vaccine. To my understanding, the vaccines are highly protective in the sense that they will stop you from getting severely ill, hospitalisation and death. However, they do NOT prevent you from being infected and having a mild illness. Now that is the major concern: As long as the vaccination rates are what they are, below 70% fully vaccinated, as long as there are 30 and more % not going to vaccinate themselfs, those vaccinated still present a risk to be spreaders of possibly unknown mutations onto the non-vaccined population or to develop mutations which will then outfox the current vaccines?
One doc I talked to recently said he is absolutely convinced that Covid will only stop to be a problem once 70-80% of the population have had it, vaccined or not. Only that many will not even realize they have had it as the vaccine prevents severe illness. The sum of all fears obviously would be a mutation which nullifies the effect of the current vaccines.
By the looks of it, if you read 3 different experts, you end up with 20 opinions on this. The Israelis seem to think that their vaccines do not sufficiently protect those vaccined from infection and make them spreaders still, hence they re-introduce the measures. The UK appears to think the same so they keep them.
Here, the voices of doom continue to grow, a 4th wave is accepted as a fact by most experts, no longer a possibility. They disagree on the effect the 4th wave will have, they disagree on the timing (July or Fall or everything in between) but that it will happen is basically given. It also appears that airlines seem to think of 2025 or later before they can even think of coming back to normal flying conditions.
So I personally think that we need to realize that things will not be the same as before, most probably for a very long time or even for ever. The more so I am glad that I was able to travel extensively while it was still possible. The memories of those places can not be taken away.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Interestingly, polls in Switzerland indicate that “75% of the population” wish to continue wearing masks in some conditions “rather than getting the flu or Covid”. Maybe there is hope for mankind yet.
Odd how different people reach the geometrically opposite conclusions 
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Interestingly, polls in Switzerland indicate that “75% of the population” wish to continue wearing masks in some conditions “rather than getting the flu or Covid”. Maybe there is hope for mankind yet.
I certainly would hope so. It is such an easy measure, and there is no harm to others. The unfortunate problem is that the contrarians who refuse vaccination are also highly likely to not wear a mask.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
[… about the vaccinated become infected and spreading the disease without becoming severely ill, or even showing any symptoms…], and One doc I talked to recently said he is absolutely convinced that Covid will only stop to be a problem once 70-80% of the population have had it, vaccined or not
I think he is spot on. My current “end-game” scenarios is that the virus circulates in the population and remains endemic, everyone will actually catch it when they are a young child and acquire sufficient immunity. Because that immunity does not prevent the disease fully, everyone will be constantly re-infected and ‘refresh’ the immune response without it being much more than an inconvenience. No vaccination required.
If the child’s immune response is strong enough to give lifelong immunity (which the vaccine or disease in adults apparently doesn’t) then we will vaccinate children as we do for measles.
For all we know, the common cold is a deadly disease that if introduced right now would be as lethal, but has been endemic for millennia. It certainly kills immune compromised people. [I know it really isn’t that bad, but the mechanism would be the same.]
Mooney_Driver wrote:
It also appears that airlines seem to think of 2025 or later before they can even think of coming back to normal flying conditions.
It is always darkest just before dawn…
Cobalt wrote:
The unfortunate problem is that the contrarians who refuse vaccination are also highly likely to not wear a mask.
True. And that is why there is no success in this without rules.
Cobalt wrote:
My current “end-game” scenarios is that the virus circulates in the population and remains endemic, everyone will actually catch it when they are a young child and acquire sufficient immunity. Because that immunity does not prevent the disease fully, everyone will be constantly re-infected and ‘refresh’ the immune response without it being much more than an inconvenience.
Ok, so it will be a inconvenience for our children, but we as adults won’t be able ever to shake it off. Well, that fits pretty much what I think as well.
Cobalt wrote:
It is always darkest just before dawn…
I hope you are right…. Personally I expect things to become much darker still…
Press reports today that in India a new subvariant of the Delta Mutation has appeared, which appears to be resistent to all current antibodies and therefore also the vaccines. In Switzerland it has already been located in several cases, so it is here.
This may well explain the explosion of cases in Israel and the UK, which apparently has not yet separated the Delta Plus mutation from the other Delta strains. The same source states, that also the current treatments such as the Roche-Antibody treatment used to cure the former POTUS would become inefficient.
If this proves to be the case we are truly back to square one.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Press reports today that in India a new subvariant of the Delta Mutation has appeared, which appears to be resistent to all current antibodies and therefore also the vaccines.
There’s a lot of “may” and “could” in that article.
Airborne_Again wrote:
There’s a lot of “may” and “could” in that article.
Yea, well, February 2020 all over again, ain’t it? There were a lot of may and could followed by nahh, it won’t be that bad… well….
Sure, but… we have the vaccines now.
Without vaccines, yes it would be same all over again, every time it comes back.
So now you can have an epidemic, but almost nobody gets seriously ill.
Society will eventually have to accept that a “balance” must be found. For example a “balance” has been accepted with smoking, which kills huge numbers. Obesity kills way more than smoking (indirectly). It is just taking some time because it is red hot politically.
