Obviously the pandemic is not currently over and will not be in the foreseeable future. For this discussion, assume that the actual end of the pandemic would be when there is no more elevated risk of sickness/disabling relative to the norm before COVID.
The world has decided on a vaccine-only strategy where a majority of the populace does not get vaccinated which isn't going to do anything. The concept of herd immunity through "natural infection" is even less effective, as we can see with the many cases of reinfection. Even something as mild as mask mandates are non-viable in the US.
So, assuming no mitigations are implemented again... how does the pandemic actually end? Is it just gambling on eventually getting a mild strain that actually becomes "a bad flu"? Do we have any historical data on what kind of timeframe we can expect here?
Or is it just going to be like this forever?
forever is the realistic answer. My personal hope is that human genius once more saves us. Humanity is wonderful. Humanity is powerful. Humanity can exceed all expectations. Can, being the operative word. Hope is all I have left. I choose to maintain it for now at least.
yeah, maybe genius was the wrong word. Brilliant people have always existed and shall continue to do so. Losing sight of the support networks that make the achievements those people make is the fallacy that allows the cult of IQ to hijack that. Measles existed forever, but eventually we won. I doubt we will defeat covid in my lifetime, but if we allow the human project to survive, we will win... eventually
When Marx discusses the lengthening of the working day as the bourgeoisie gained dominance in the early chapters of Capital, Volume 1, he discusses how gradually the working day was lengthened so far beyond what was sustainable in terms of maintaining a healthy workforce that the life expectancy of workers was dropping into the 20's and the average height of English conscript soldiers was falling below that of soldiers in its competitors.
In short, capital in England had expanded the level of exploitation of its workforce and robbed their health to the extent that it was undermining the process of capital accumulation. There was a shortage of good labour, and the security of Britain's capitalists was under threat.
At that point, faced by increasing Worker's resistance, the British state stepped in to secure the interests of capital by legally limiting the working day, so that the health of the workforce might be restored and the resistance of workers curtailed in the interests of profit. This netted us the celebrated 8 hour workday, which was gradually chipped away in the latter half of the 20th century.
Now to COVID. We're already seeing labour shortages thanks to COVID-induced disability, and this situation is likely to worsen with time as COVID-induced disability and other disabilities proliferate with the breakdown of health systems. The current health policy in the imperial core is to brush the pandemic under the carpet in the interests of getting people working, and this policy is leading to increasing scarcity of labour and a growing surplus of discarded, disabled workers.
This situation is not in the interests of workers, and in the long term, it is not in the interests of capital. This presents an arena of struggle around which workers might organise and push-back to achieve concessions once again.
We don't want to be getting sick over and over again with a virus that kills and maims us, that impairs our health further with each successive infection. There is nothing good about this situation. But it does strengthen the power of mass mobilisation and strikes, as labour is increasingly scarce. And so, with sustained organising, grass-roots education and resistance, we could push back the high tide of COVID denials, and win back some of the things we need to strengthen workers power and end the pandemic for real.
This includes health protections in the form of paid sick leave, socialised health-care, and disability indemnity. It also includes prevention in the form of limitations of risky workplace practices, non-pharmaceutical interventions in public spaces and at work such as air filtration, masking, UV lighting, limitations on crowding, closed spaces and close contact, as well as socially supplied vaccination and treatment.
In the long run it could also be used to organise for better pay and conditions at work, and stronger unionisation, which we're already seeing.
I've never looked in to it in detail, but my understanding is that the vast amount of death (like 30% of the population) during the Black Plague in Europe massively shifted labor relations for several generations until the population returned to it's pre-plague levels. For a while peasants and other laborers could essentially name their price because labor was so scarce.
There was a century of peasants revolting against the feudal nobility in places like England, France, Germany, and others, not just because of the plague but also because of the nobles' general wastefulness and incompetence stemming from the Hundred Years' War. Sometimes the peasants would even take over cities like London or Paris, but then they would lib the fuck out, beg the king for help, and get destroyed. When it was over, we had capitalism in England, absolutism in France, and another century at least of religious wars to look forward to, which themselves probably only chilled out in the end because of colonialism.
Good books about this: A Distant Mirror, The Origin of Capitalism, Caliban and the Witch, Marx's chapters in capital which deal with capitalism's beginnings (a much easier read than the earlier chapters of Capital). A People's History of the World is also good IMO. I like the author's thesis that history is basically the history of class struggle (heh), meaning that the ruling class is always looking for new ways to extract surplus labor, regardless of whether that's through slavery, feudalism, or capitalism. The book is pretty good until it gets to the Russian Revolution, because the author is a Trotskyist.
The issue I see here is the contradiction between big pharma and the rest of the bourgeoisie. (I also hate that I sound like an anti-vaxxer as I say this, but I am 4x-vaxxed.) Big pharma profits from making people sick; the rest of the bourgeoisie cannot profit if everyone is either dead or has long covid. I've seen small business owners advocating for bringing in more immigrants, particularly from Ukraine (since they are "civilized"), to help with the labor shortage, in response to this issue.
The big fucking problem, as always with the American working class, is that we/they need to work together with our brothers and sisters around the world. Capital has no issues going overseas for help (even if China is making this increasingly difficult), but American workers think they are traitors if they try to strike together with workers in Mexico, for instance. A major issue with this is that it requires American workers to take a pay cut in the name of long-term benefits (the permanent destruction of capitalism), since American workers are paid far better than workers in the Global South. On the other hand, lib unions capitulate to capital constantly, so theoretically at least, why shouldn't they capitulate to their dark-skinned brothers and sisters in other countries? (Because of settler-colonialism, imperialism, white supremacy, etc.)
the rest of the bourgeoisie cannot profit if everyone is either dead or has long covid.
You should tell them that, I don’t think they’ve realized it yet and it’s fucking baffling
I think they’re mostly still doing okay because of imperialism basically dumping shitloads of money into the stock market / covid handouts to business. Once that gravy train ends they’re going to be extremely fucked and extremely angry.
What I would give just to live under a version of capitalism where the capitalists can see past the bridge of their nose
I think there is a lot to learn from AIDS activism in South Africa, since the South African state basically approached HIV in much of the late 90s-2000s in the same way most western countries have been addressing COVID. The main tactics used were a mix of mass education on a grass roots level, direct action against ruling institutions, legalism, and etc. This lead to better medical infrastructure for dealing with HIV and more accessible treatment options for working class people there, as well the end of the state-lead disinformation campaign.
I think since COVID is an airborne virus, and because many western states are taking advantage of people's ableist tendencies to have them believe that they are somehow "immune" to its worst effects, I think more anti-ableism stuff targeted towards anti-maskers broadly could have use too. From what I have seen, shit that is confrontational and hostile to anti-masking stuff has gotten some peeps to mask up again due to social pressure from propaganda and call outs. That more militant praxis is not exactly great if you are trying to base build, but I also believe that not all effective political struggle has to involve base building.
I think the goal should be to have more air ventilation infrastructure around and to change the broader culture so that masking becomes way more prevalent again; this will make the virus less of an issue for people's daily lives. I think the lessons from AIDS activism are potentially useful for both goals. I don't think any states need to be seized or smashed to cause these changes to take place, these goals can be reached through grass roots struggle changing the broader culture.
I think you're probably right about long-term grassroots organizing, which is unfortunate given how long the timeline is on that site. If it takes 20 years of activism to get the necessary changes, how many people will even be left fully able-bodied?
I'm not sure of the comparison to HIV/AIDS specifically, though, given that the changes in behavior and PPE required to mitigate the spread of the two diseases is pretty drastically different, which will necessitate greater lifestyle changes. There is no safe way to eat indoors in a restaurant while preventing COVID infection, for instance. EDIT: Also obviously the public perception that COVID is acceptable is a massive hurdle when compared with the perception of HIV/AIDS (generally extremely negative).
I think something that might help us, and its honestly fucked up, is that a ton of people are going to be completely fucked up by COVID in the next year or two which could help change public perception on the virus or at least make more people sympathetic to a grass roots movement pushing for broader COVID safety (even if bourgeoisie media does not reflect it).
The HIV/AIDS comparison is more about pointing to past organizing efforts around a virus, but your absolutely right that we are dealing with a different beast regarding COVID.
There has definitely been some local COVID activism going on where I am at. While it is definitely in its early days I am already seeing it making some headway, even if the positive change is currently minimal. The most effective stuff I have noticed has been efforts distributing free masks or Corsi rosenthal boxes, and propaganda campaigns that either educate people on the virus or basically dunk on anti-maskers. The latter has actually been more effective than expected, but I live in a city with a lot of libs whom are pretty easy to sway on that stuff via dunking.
I'm not so sure, honestly. Two of my coworkers probably have long covid (general fatigue to the point that one of them has given up his old hobby of MMA after getting COVID a year ago) and their reaction when asked about it was essentially "Well what're you gonna do? We have to go back to normal. :grillman:" Maybe the numbers will tell.
Glad to hear some people are at least getting the ball rolling; there's nothing near me.
Who knows may be you can be the one that starts the COVID safety organizing effort in your area. All the stuff I mentioned are done with pretty small crews, and they have been effective for their size.
It looks like me dying of covid or getting long covid and my lib friends and family saying it was due to pre-existing conditions, even though I have no pre-existing conditions. I mask constantly, am 4x-vaxxed, am relatively young, exercise regularly, and am not in public spaces indoors except to get groceries 2x per week. My kids are the same and are doing commie homeschool with me. I am nonetheless extremely concerned for all of us because my spouse is an RN and is regularly exposed to liberal and fascist shitheads who cannot be bothered to put on a mask.
well long term long term the new varients of covid are getting marginally less deadly so eventually covid will become part of the generic common cold as it trends to more transmissable and less deadly
this is broadly what happened with influenza outbreaks in the past
It's endemic. There's no getting rid of it, there's just individual infection control. It'll get worse in the winter, people will continue to die. You get your biannual shot and get back to work lol.
On the plus(?) side the winters are getting milder ig
Best case scenario that I see in any realistic timeframe: Literal bodies in the streets make even the rich take covid seriously again.
Basically the levels of disablement and death get so high that it seriously disrupts supply chains/The Holy Line and they're forced at metaphorical gunpoint to acknowledge there's still a problem.
I honestly wonder how much death that would take. I guess it would involve overloading hospitals etc and with their capacities still steadily dropping it gets likelier every day.
Most likely the first thing that's gonna happen. With the amount of people leaving/avoiding healthcare careers, and the ever-increasing number of significantly ill people, it's basically inevitable.
Aren't hospitals still overloaded now?
And I haven't looked in to it, but as of a year ago there was a dire crisis in medical staffing due to so many people dying, becoming disabled, or crashing out due to unrelenting stress and understaffing. And it's all the way up and down, from ambulance paramedics to Drs and everyone in between.
I was under the impression that, while there are now less staff who are more overworked, ER patient numbers aren't as bad as they were in the early days of the pandemic. Then again I don't work in healthcare, so maybe they are.
We’re running out of skilled labor sooner or later. A country with only rich idiots, slaves and soldiers is just a glorified monarchy.
Over successive generations, those who by luck develop a bit of genetic immunity to the virus will propagate more successfully and over several hundred years these genes will come to spread throughout the population.
Basically the only way 'out' of the pandemic is a pan-coronavirus vaccine or at least a pan-sarbecovirus vaccine.
I don't see why any western companies would bother if they're going to be able to start charging the government $100 bucks a pop like they're saying.
They're working on it but funding is quite low compared to operation warp speed.
I really don't see a path to the end without governments taking it seriously, doing contact tracing, expanding sick time available, and upgrading ventilation pretty much everywhere. We should be masking heavily during that last part, but we're well past getting people to do that.
So in the context of your question where we assume governments don't do the above, I don't think it ends.
Yeah, I've accepted that I'm going to be wearing an N95 whenever I'm in public indefinitely. Might do small gatherings with the stipulation that everyone tests for COVID immediately prior, and it's called off if anyone is even remotely sick. I've had to cut off my family because they're a bunch of shitheads, but that was brewing for years.
