Quote:
Originally Posted by heero_yuy
I think that'll be pretty much a given. This virus isn't going away anytime soon.
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But so far as it has mutated it has generally become milder, even with the increased ability to circumvent immunity.
Now I'm far from being anti-vaccination, but I don't really see how much benefit using the original vaccines again is actually going to have. Yes immunity wanes, but these vaccines target a specific part of the virus which has now changed significantly in the currently circulating variants. From what I've also seen, in various studies (think the ONS show too) the immune response is waning much less after a third dose than after the first two. The reinfections and escape infections we are seeing are presumably because omicron can do this when your protection is against an older variant which is why we need to be using the updated Pfizer and Moderna jabs when we can.
Mercifully, whilst there has been an increase in people testing positive on hospital admission during the current wave stats also show most of these are incidental and that a lot of them don't have covid as the reason why they are there. Whilst this still has its own considerations to make, the admissions are still some way off peaks and the severity of infections is less, the number of deaths has gone down and stayed down, which also means the hospitals are able to treat those admitted (assuming they need it) in most cases. We aren't back to Jan 2021 levels and probably never will be as the virus gets less potent, the vaccines give some protection, and we get better at treating those who do get it badly.
All part of it becoming endemic - most people who are getting it now are usually having a flu-like infection for a week or two most and then get over it. It won't be going away, but it will increasingly be possible to cope with it.