Will we ever escape the new variant terror?

[TownTalkJewels]

Serious question... how will we ever escape the cycle of ‘scary variant, let’s lock down again until we know more?’

The world will never be fully vaccinated. Emerging markets don’t have the cash or the infrastructure to do it, and then there’s vaccine hesitancy. Even the US is unlikely to reach herd immunity due to this.

I realise that the vaccines will work against most, if not all variants. But- we won’t know that about each variant on Day 1, when it emerges. Do we panic each time?

What is the logical implication of this? Will we spend the foreseeable future afraid of the South African / Brazilian/ Indian/ whatever’s next variant?

This really has me down today. I had felt positive about things improving, and now all I see is a never ending cycle.

Please someone tell me I’m wrong, and there’s a way out of the fear?

I don't honestly think there is when the media ramps it up like this every.single.time.

I personally think we have to learn to live with it now. Something like 95% of the vulnerable population are fully vaccinated now which has to have an impact on hospitalisations and deaths and yet we are still banging on about case numbers. It doesn't matter. If those cases don't result in hospitalisation or deaths they have no relevance at all to the overall handling of the pandemic - in fact, they help towards the holy grail of herd immunity, surely?

Anyway, I felt exactly the same as you this morning. I'm done to death with every time there's some relaxing of rules, it's countered with another "we're-all-going-to-die-variant" mass fear campaign in the media.

I think there is research ongoing into being able to design a more universal vaccine, based on antibodies to the capsule proteins rather than the spike proteins, as it is thought that most of the mutations happening seem to affect the spike for this type of virus. That would be a big step forward into a more long-term solution than constant tweaking of vaccines, though that will help to start with. There are hundreds of variants and mutations all the time, and it is only a few that are being described as variants of concern, so I do tend to trust them when a load of scientists all agree that one is particularly concerning. They are not reporting on the majority of them at all. It's disappointing for many of us - devastating for livelihoods - but not something to just dismiss as scaremongering. The government, I'm sure, would like us to open up as fast as possible, as it's in their interests to do so!

@Seriouslymole

I don't honestly think there is when the media ramps it up like this every.single.time.

I personally think we have to learn to live with it now. Something like 95% of the vulnerable population are fully vaccinated now which has to have an impact on hospitalisations and deaths and yet we are still banging on about case numbers. It doesn't matter. If those cases don't result in hospitalisation or deaths they have no relevance at all to the overall handling of the pandemic - in fact, they help towards the holy grail of herd immunity, surely?

Anyway, I felt exactly the same as you this morning. I'm done to death with every time there's some relaxing of rules, it's countered with another "we're-all-going-to-die-variant" mass fear campaign in the media.

Agreed! I'm fed up of hearing about fucking case numbers. It shouldn't matter....We should be focusing on hospitalizations/death numbers.

I'm genuinley starting to feel like no government wants to be the first to take this stance though , except USA.

Terror? All I've seen is that the vaccines continute to reduce serious illness to practically zero, for each new variant.

I am not now paying attention to any new case reporting unless they are also reporting the people's age bracket, vaccination status and severity of symptoms. I don't need to know that an unvaccinated person has mild covid symptoms just because it's a new variant. It's no longer relevant. If they are seeing increasing severe cases in vaccinated people than fine, let me know about it.

Never!! It is extremely important that you BE AFRAID!!