The Coronavirus Is Here Forever
&quot;The transition to endemic COVID-19 is also a psychological one. When everyone has some immunity, a COVID-19 diagnosis becomes as routine as diagnosis of strep or flu—not good news, but not a reason for particular fear or worry or embarrassment either. That means unlearning a year of messaging that said COVID-19 was not just a flu. If the confusion around the CDC dropping mask recommendations for the vaccinated earlier this summer is any indication, this transition to endemicity might be psychologically rocky.&quot;<p>Diseases that are endemic today, such as chicken pox, once caused epidemics with massive body counts, notably in North America.  No vaccines, no advanced medical care, and no natural immunity meant that some villages just ceased to exist.<p>Today, thanks to air travel, the world is a village.  Wuhan is exposed one week, and the world the next.  We, the natives of that village, have vaccines and advanced medical care in finite quantities, plus a better understanding of how to reduce transmission rates.  That&#x27;s gone a long way to soften the blow.  The transition from pandemic to endemic usually kills a <i>lot</i> more people in a given area, and the area effected right now is <i>everywhere</i>.<p>The thing is, COVID-19 is <i>not</i> endemic yet and, even once it is, will likely retain the capability of mutating into a strain that causes a new deadly pandemic.  Flu is endemic, but another 1918 could happen at any time.  Until we&#x27;ve built up immunity to several different strains of COVID-19, every new strain has the potential to overwhelm our medical systems, and a unusually contagious and deadly mutant will always be a possibility.<p>It&#x27;s not as simple as flipping a switch from &quot;life threatening pandemic&quot; to &quot;quotidian endemic&quot;.  There are shades of grey in between that cause varying strain on hospital ICU&#x27;s, and the transition isn&#x27;t one-way.<p>Our village will be hit far less hard if we behave intelligently about disease prevention.  Turning vaccines into a political wedge issue is one of the stupidest things I&#x27;ve seen in my life.