The COVID-19 pandemic

[jeffster]

Interesting article from the CBC:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/omicron-s...-1.6296669

Overall gist of it is simple: everyone is going to get Covid-19 at some point -- the vaccine can't stop you from getting infected, but it will help prevent hospitalizations or getting sick enough to ruin your day.

There's another point, which is that stigma never helps. It didn't help with HIV, it doesn't help with COVID.

I don't think that it's inevitable. I can see a 50% population attack rate, but that is still a 50/50 chance of not having it.

I am not sure if that will actually be true. Currently infection rates are higher among the vaccinated than unvaccinated (something like 0.9x for unvaccinated). Could be that 3 doses changes those numbers, who knows. But at the rate, it appears that everyone has been, or will be, infected at some point.

Perhaps the issue is that vaccinated people are more likely to play fast and loose with their vaccinated family, friends and co-workers, compared to unvaccinated people that might be shunned, disfellowshipped and excommunicated from family, friends and co-workers.

We're going to see eye-popping numbers over the next few weeks, but I also expect it to drop off really quickly by the end of January or in February. The omicron variant will be mild enough for the majority of people that this group is less likely to go through with having their brain swabbed. Especially among the vaccinated and hard-core anti-vaxxers (live by the sword, die by the sword folks).

The next variant is pi, ironically, could arrive by Pi Day (March 14).