Sars2 still evolving 6-10x faster than the other coronaviruses, and 2.5-9x faster than flu strains. And it hasn't slowed down (yet). No wonder we keep getting wave after wave, while the others have become more seasonal.
https://nitter.poast.org/JPWeiland/status/1717681840494940183#m
The #SARSCoV2 virus is accumulating mutations with amino acid substitutions faster than other endemic viruses, including 2.5 fold more rapidly than influenza (A/H3N2 HA1), the prototype of rapid antigen evolution
https://nitter.poast.org/EricTopol/status/1717576172459250085#m
In my region, wastewater shows covid present all the time, with waves roughly every 2-3 months. Flu mostly goes away after winter, covid is more or less a constant presence.
Until a sterilizing vaccine is created, which may not be possible, or a vaccine that drastically lowers how infectious people are if they get infected, it's just going to keep going on like this. The "let 'er rip" strategy adopted by the west has fucked the world and made containment impossible short of a scientific breakthrough.
I'm sure our ruthless capitalist overlords are all very sad that a large number of people will be dieing before retirement is possible thanks to covid cutting all our lives short.
Just for the record back in March 2020 me and my entire family didn't care about COVID, and I was the only one who caught it, despite going outside less than them.
I've also gotten reinfected by it through a mask in 2021.
Masking is not even remotely a 1-to-1 correlation between preventing infection, it just lessens the viral load if 1) you breathe it in and 2) you are phenotypically capable of getting infected. Exposure may be a factor, but other phenotypical traits are also a factor, since people get reinfected all the time, while other people haven't gotten sick at all in 3 years