A qualifying criterion for being endemic is the virus settles into seasonal patterns. Covid has been mutating too rapidly for that. Allowing it to be on the loose is anti-human.
Smallpox and polio were "here to stay" in the past. Containment of Covid with vaccines at this time doesn't look hopeful, but China already demonstrated, many times in a row, that Covid can be eradicated with the firebreak method, which has also seen use in the eradication of past diseases, efforts led primarily by the USSR and US. The eradication of Covid is not materially or physically impossible, it is just that neoliberalism runs contrary to gathering the necessary political will.
Since Covid continues to cause acute deaths more than is generally assumed, and since long Covid appears to follow in 1/5 to 1/4 of cases with the rate increasing with successive infections, and since long covid can entail anything from weird little changes to body functions up to ME/CFS, early heart disease, early cancer, cognitive decline, and immunodeficiency, it is absolutely a worthy effort to build that political will by any means.
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A qualifying criterion for being endemic is the virus settles into seasonal patterns. Covid has been mutating too rapidly for that. Allowing it to be on the loose is anti-human.
Smallpox and polio were "here to stay" in the past. Containment of Covid with vaccines at this time doesn't look hopeful, but China already demonstrated, many times in a row, that Covid can be eradicated with the firebreak method, which has also seen use in the eradication of past diseases, efforts led primarily by the USSR and US. The eradication of Covid is not materially or physically impossible, it is just that neoliberalism runs contrary to gathering the necessary political will.
Since Covid continues to cause acute deaths more than is generally assumed, and since long Covid appears to follow in 1/5 to 1/4 of cases with the rate increasing with successive infections, and since long covid can entail anything from weird little changes to body functions up to ME/CFS, early heart disease, early cancer, cognitive decline, and immunodeficiency, it is absolutely a worthy effort to build that political will by any means.