As time goes on, it will mutate into less and less virulent ( but more contagious ) variants; this is exactly what we are seeing with the omicron thing: the vast majority of people with it are experiencing symptoms no greater than that of a heavy cold.
What we refer to as the "common cold" is in fact caused by more than 200 different viruses; most are rhinoviruses but there are four other coronaviruses amongst that lot. Each and every one of those 200+ viruses was originally much more damaging than they are now.
A close parallel is what happened when Europeans first encountered the indigenous populations of Central and South America - those populations were almost wiped out by the colds they caught off the Europeans; they had never encountered those viruses before and their immune systems had no way of dealing with them whereas in the Europeans there was a high level of resistance through many centuries of past exposure. The viruses were already in a very weakened form, but the lack of an immune response did the damage.
Omicron is likely not the last high profile variant we will hear of in the current pandemic ( and note: historically pandemics have tended to last roughly two years, the point where we are at now ) but the next variant will spread even faster but will be even weaker. The one after that will be faster and weaker still - and by that point, the damaging part of the process will be over.
In summary, no - SARS Cov2 will not ever go away, and anyone who aims at zero covid is not being realistic; what will happen is that it will just settle down into another "cold" virus and we will probably be at that point sooner than it looks at the moment.
A good reflection on where we are 2 years on (the warning notice was issued 2 years ago today... by the doctor who discovered it, and was silenced, and then ended up dying of covid later...)
Once we are over the alarming Omicron spike, there's certainly reasons to be hopeful. This is just as well, given that the world has shown itself to be incapable of vaccinating everyone on the planet in a timely manner, even as others get astoundingly rich...
For Cruise ships - vaccines don't stop you catching and transferring the virus, and they also don't offer 100% protection from getting symptoms (or worse). On top of that, tests aren't perfect and take time to show up - it can take many days. Once you understand that, its easy to understand how they're getting outbreaks. From what I've read, they're not testing anything like enough. Everyone on board should be testing every day I think.
Also, I've heard absolutely nothing about cruise ships revising their air-conditioning systems so that the virus can't be transferred from room to room. Covid can "hang in the air" for ages, and Omicron is catchable like that. A doctor on the radio yesterday said they think its more infectious than Measles, and you can catch that in a room that someone was in hours previously...
Topic: Coronavirus : general discussion focussed on the impact on the cruise industry (Read 61783 times)
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Sep 23, 2021, 04:05 AM