AstraZeneca Scientist Says Delta Variant Makes Herd Immunity Impossible
As far as I can tell the conclusions we&#x27;re going to have to draw are:<p>1) We need to keep using all strategies - including masking, social distancing, and targeted lockdowns - to reduce large scale spread of the virus. If we don&#x27;t, we&#x27;re going to be playing &quot;new variant whack-a-mole&quot; until the end of time.<p>2) Vaccination is critical to make the above task easier but it&#x27;s not enough it itself. There seems to be a lot of evidence that it reduces chance of passing it on and the severity of the cases, but it&#x27;s clearly not enough by itself (see Israel, although the remaining unvaccinated population is a big factor anywhere in passing COVID on).<p>We&#x27;re also going to have to start kicking the asses of the pointlessly vaccine-skeptical through harsh restrictions and denial of things. In Australia, once we have universal access to the vaccine, I would be quite keen to see vaccine refusers not treated for free if they <i>do</i> get COVID - I&#x27;d support a &quot;HECS&quot;-like scheme for people who get avoidable diseases like this, including the government getting to sell your house when you die to recoup costs.<p>3) There&#x27;s a pile of stuff we don&#x27;t know about the long-term effects of COVID-19 and some ominous indications that it&#x27;s Really Not Good. I don&#x27;t want to get into a case-by-case with a bunch of self-appointed Internet Experts about this but there&#x27;s a lot of medical opinion out there that long COVID is real and serious (particularly on the neurological side). We don&#x27;t know how bad it really is because no-one has had COVID for more than 2 years.<p>Having participated in the care of multiple relatives over the years with dementia, one thing that chills me is the prospect that COVID will lead to even a slight uptick in the chance of getting Lewy body dementia or Parkinson&#x27;s. That&#x27;s a fucking public health tsunami.<p>We also don&#x27;t know much about the effects of lockdown, etc. but the picture seems to be complex and indecisive. All the anti-lockdown people going on about suicides and depression apparently think the only source of suicide and depression in a massive pandemic where people are losing folks dear to them and are terrified of getting a debilitating disease is because they are locked down. As usual, it&#x27;s the typical overreach of the Internet Expert.<p>Normal is a very long way off. The implications of COVID being &#x27;endemic&#x27; certainly aren&#x27;t what most people casually tossing the word around think they are, and magical thinking about &#x27;living with the virus&#x27; isn&#x27;t going to make long COVID go away.