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m_d_hI'm gonna stop calling it COVID-19, because scientists around the world are documenting an ever-increasing number of COVID variants popping up all over the place, and then discovering the current vaccines are less effective against them (not ineffective, but less effective).
As many predicted would happen, it increasingly looks like we're entering a new normal in which several variants of COVID are simultaneously traveling around the world, just as several variants of influenza are simultaneously traveling around the world. And these variants are constantly mutating into new variants.
I fully expect that in the future, annual COVID shots will protect against the top 3 or 4 variants each year, just as flu shots protect against the top 3 or 4 variants each year.
And each year, the effectiveness of the shots will vary. And not everybody will bother to get them
So now what?
We cannot stay in Quarantine forever.
And we're gonna have to ramp up the vaccine production and delivery systems so that each year we're pumping out and injecting a couple hundred million updated COVID shots in the US. Routinely. We'll have ample stockpiles of each year's vaccine, you won't have to wait in long lines, you can just get your annual shot the next time you're at CVS or your doctor's office.
Personally I'm not going to spend the rest of my life hiding from each new COVID variant. I'll follow the local laws and regulations, of course. But I'm not gonna hide inside tiny social bubbles forever. Get me the current vaccine ASAP, and then I'll return to normal. And then I'll get the annual booster shot every year, just like I get the annual flu shot every year. And then someday, I'll catch some variant of COVID anyway, just like I occasionally catch a variant of influenza anyway. And I'll probably survive.
We've got to get to a point of normalization with this. Hopefully under Biden we can do this together -- ramping up a new, permanent vaccination industry, and figuring out which rules are sustainable over the long term with respect to mass transit, work places, schools, entertainment, shopping, travel.
I can't spend the rest of my life obsessing over whether the current vaccine is only 60% effective against the South Africa variant, or whatever % effective against the Brazil variant, etc.
We'll figure it out. Maybe we'll always wear masks on airplanes and buses, and while attending concerts and plays. Maybe if you can do your job from home you do your job from home. Maybe a lot of us test ourselves each morning with disposable test strips, and we stay home if we test positive that day. Maybe the test strip readers connect to apps on our phones so we can display our negative statuses to the turnstiles before entering buildings. I don't know the exact future, but you're not gonna convince me that someday we're gonna "beat" COVID. It's here to stay. What I cannot tell yet is how we will adapt over the long term.
Before I was born, we set up public health systems to vaccinate people for the first time, we set up public sewage systems and public water systems to reduce the spread of intestinal diseases. We developed antibiotics, and then more recently antivirals. People placed hand sanitizer dispensers on their desks at the office, and some of us learned to stay home when we're sick. Somehow COVID will factor permanently into our lives and we'll set up prevention systems and we'll just deal with it. Not via denial, and not via endless quarantine, but via permanently changed routines & expectations.
We should've set up a widespread test, trace, and isolate system from the start, like some other countries did. We did not. So we've got this locality-by-locality shifting set of rules about what can be open, and at what capacity, and how many people we can hang out with at the same time. Along with locality-by-locality distribution of vaccines. It's a deadly mess, and it will kill hundreds of thousands more people before we get the first version of the vaccine into everybody's arms. And then we'll see that COVID hasn't fully disappeared After the Vaccine, and we'll have to work out the new rules, and our lives will mostly go on.
As many predicted would happen, it increasingly looks like we're entering a new normal in which several variants of COVID are simultaneously traveling around the world, just as several variants of influenza are simultaneously traveling around the world. And these variants are constantly mutating into new variants.
I fully expect that in the future, annual COVID shots will protect against the top 3 or 4 variants each year, just as flu shots protect against the top 3 or 4 variants each year.
And each year, the effectiveness of the shots will vary. And not everybody will bother to get them
So now what?
We cannot stay in Quarantine forever.
And we're gonna have to ramp up the vaccine production and delivery systems so that each year we're pumping out and injecting a couple hundred million updated COVID shots in the US. Routinely. We'll have ample stockpiles of each year's vaccine, you won't have to wait in long lines, you can just get your annual shot the next time you're at CVS or your doctor's office.
Personally I'm not going to spend the rest of my life hiding from each new COVID variant. I'll follow the local laws and regulations, of course. But I'm not gonna hide inside tiny social bubbles forever. Get me the current vaccine ASAP, and then I'll return to normal. And then I'll get the annual booster shot every year, just like I get the annual flu shot every year. And then someday, I'll catch some variant of COVID anyway, just like I occasionally catch a variant of influenza anyway. And I'll probably survive.
We've got to get to a point of normalization with this. Hopefully under Biden we can do this together -- ramping up a new, permanent vaccination industry, and figuring out which rules are sustainable over the long term with respect to mass transit, work places, schools, entertainment, shopping, travel.
I can't spend the rest of my life obsessing over whether the current vaccine is only 60% effective against the South Africa variant, or whatever % effective against the Brazil variant, etc.
We'll figure it out. Maybe we'll always wear masks on airplanes and buses, and while attending concerts and plays. Maybe if you can do your job from home you do your job from home. Maybe a lot of us test ourselves each morning with disposable test strips, and we stay home if we test positive that day. Maybe the test strip readers connect to apps on our phones so we can display our negative statuses to the turnstiles before entering buildings. I don't know the exact future, but you're not gonna convince me that someday we're gonna "beat" COVID. It's here to stay. What I cannot tell yet is how we will adapt over the long term.
Before I was born, we set up public health systems to vaccinate people for the first time, we set up public sewage systems and public water systems to reduce the spread of intestinal diseases. We developed antibiotics, and then more recently antivirals. People placed hand sanitizer dispensers on their desks at the office, and some of us learned to stay home when we're sick. Somehow COVID will factor permanently into our lives and we'll set up prevention systems and we'll just deal with it. Not via denial, and not via endless quarantine, but via permanently changed routines & expectations.
We should've set up a widespread test, trace, and isolate system from the start, like some other countries did. We did not. So we've got this locality-by-locality shifting set of rules about what can be open, and at what capacity, and how many people we can hang out with at the same time. Along with locality-by-locality distribution of vaccines. It's a deadly mess, and it will kill hundreds of thousands more people before we get the first version of the vaccine into everybody's arms. And then we'll see that COVID hasn't fully disappeared After the Vaccine, and we'll have to work out the new rules, and our lives will mostly go on.