What is the future of Covid?

I've spent the last five years shielding, and despite that, have had major setbacks from what have probably been Covid infections. I'm wondering whether I and the many other PwME still shielding will ever be able to safely return to society.

Five years on, what do scientists now think about the future of Covid? For example, is it likely to cause milder infections as time goes on? Are vaccines that would reduce or even stop infection and/or spread likely to be developed? Are there signs that any countries will take public health measures to protect against their citizens developing Long Covid from repeated infection?

Discuss!

 

Many scientists and especially medical professionals don’t actively care about it anymore. Masking, ventilation etc is an afterthought if even a thought at all. I think it feels like it matters less now because the government and coorperations are now focusing on economic growth and COVID prevention works at odds with that.

I think we’ll just have the equivalent of a more severe flu going around now basically forever. Vaccinations don’t seem very useful at stopping spread and most healthy people don’t seem to care.

All in all, the situation really sucks for us.

 

Covid is set to continue on its highly successful trajectory.

 

Scientists who remain seriously concerned by the detrimental effects of this success on human health are set for five more year of gaslighting from their colleagues, ‘What deaths? What teenage dementia?
What massive rise in disability?’

 

Thank you @Sasha for this thread. I'm pondering on the same things, still shielding, and it's so good to discuss with others

I hope more people will begin to understand that avoiding infections is a great way to take care of one's health. Hopefully in time to take preventive measures, instead of having to deal with post infectious chronic disease.

Yes, I guess milder covid infections are likely for some as there is more immunity from vaccines and previous infections in the population. But that's just the acute infections on a population level, may have a lot to do with the current mutations, it still won't give us full immunity, and lots of individuals will still get more severe rounds of acute infection even if they've had mild ones before.

Research is pointing towards an accumulative risk of long term illness post infections. So to have no measures against a highly transmissible, pathogenic virus freely circulating for repeat infections isn't sustainable for public health. And a population with increased chronic illness isn't sustainable for the economy and society, so someone somewhere ought to wake up eventually.

There are already over 17 200 publications now on Long Covid. Not a single study can suggest that repeated Covid infections are good for us, or at least neutral for our health. Sooner or later this will have to sink in for others too, surely?

 

You might think.
But governments have found a way around this by just blaming all the people that their reckless policies have disabled out the work force for being weak willed enough to get sick and is focusing its political efforts on punishing people until they return to work or drop dead. That’s the plan so far.

Whilst this isn’t working well for the population it it seems to be quite satisfactory for many governments all over the globe

 

It doesn’t have to be like this and I know things could turn around rapidly, if popular will demanded this, especially if as yet non disabled workers and unions pushed back harder on on Covid as a work place hazard and a health and safety issue. There is opportunity for leverage.

There are also currently amazing scientists looking at what’s happening and trying to push for change.

But I have seen no developments for the better in terms of health and safety in health or social care provision for workers, in the last five years conditions have only deteriorated as for those in education, as yet denial that there exists a mass disabling event is as strong as ever, the number of people dying is neither much discussed nor properly counted.

 

I think overall COVID may have influenced 10 decisions in the past 5 years. Otherwise my life is 99% identical. Some of those decisions have been pushing back medical care, but I don't think that counts as returning to society. I am basically cast out of society, so no change there.

In general I don't see things changing much. Aside from technological progress, humanity is basically as static as it ever was. Fortunately technological progress will ramp up massively in the next few years, and whatever happens as a consequence will matter far more than choices people make. Society will continue to be unsafe and hostile to us, but that's not related to COVID. It's just built like that, because that's what medicine forces on us.

The other big unknown is bird flu. Which would be like COVID but on hardcore mode. If it happens, it will make COVID look like a day at the beach. And it will be so much stupider and incompetent.

 

I'm also mostly bracing myself for the entire RECOVER initiative to be cancelled once the new administration gets in. Cancelled outright, with ongoing research not even allowed to finish or publish anything. Everything just stops. I hope I'm very wrong about that but this is usually how things turn out for us.

And I'm not expecting anything useful out of medicine to make progress on LC or ME/CFS. They just don't have what it takes, they don't even have what it takes to realize that their performance is the absolute worst. So it's back to technological progress being the only thing that matters, in this case: AI. The problem in medicine when it comes to us is the human side, the ugly bigotry they built to excuse their failures. The only way out of this is technology bypassing them and making them obsolete. As is tradition.

 

I don't see much sign of that. People still seem to be under the impression that vaccination and booster shots make them immune/protects them from catching the illness. There has been a huge rise in people being admitted to hospital with flu this year.
Then there are those who regularly get some bug and seem to think that you just have to keep going and all will be well (
which I guess we all did back in the day) until it isn't.

 

Even if governments wanted to take public health action on it, it would probably be hard to get public buy-in now. So many people view Covid as a cold. I had it again last week; I was due to go to a Christmas event and thought I should test first, but otherwise I'd have assumed it was exactly that, a cold.

Wide experience of mild illness and uneventful recovery makes it harder to make a case for investment in protective measures than it was when hundreds of thousands were dying and populations were genuinely frightened. (They're still dying, of course, but there seems to be a perception that it's only individuals who'd be vulnerable to any infection.)

I don't know how scientists and politicians counter this. I think there's hope, though; vaccine technology will keep improving and there may be progress on what factors make some people vulnerable to significant consequences, whether it's long Covid or other kinds of damage. And while it's hard to predict, there's a decent chance at least that the virus genuinely will become less impactful.

I am really concerned about the withdrawal of public vaccination programmes. I know it always carries risks, but with long Covid rife and so many still dying, governments only taking into account financial cost/benefit analyses (dishonest ones at that if they don't include the losses of long Covid) is unacceptable.

[Minor edits]

 

I also wonder whether the risk of Long Covid remains the same with each new infection or declines. Particularly if it remains the same, the risk to public health will be huge and never-ending.

 

I've even seen suggestions it may increase, though I don't have the wits to understand whether that's a mathematical / statistical thing to do with odds, or something that's been documented after repeat infections.

 

sorry you had it again Kitty, hope recovery is swift & uneventful.

What amazes me is that everyone i know, except for most PwME (at more than the "mild" level), simultaneously thinks covid is "just a cold" AND, that their snotty nose & sore throat cant be covid because what they have is 'not covid it's just a cold'

I've just given up.

 

I hadn't come across that one!

Yes, it's gone thanks. It was a sore throat and a snotty nose, so well within the definition of Covid-but-definitely-not-Covid.

 

I suspect that covids plan. for the future of covid, is already well underway;

Find a representative and convince them to enact policies in the best interest of Covid.
Have that representative appoint lieutenants and place them in charge of all western healthcare.
Scrap all healthcare that is even marginally effective , leaving only woo, and some form of non sticky plasters
Accuse everyone who says, look at the figures, 5 billion dead in a week, this is madness, of being loonies.

The future of covid.

 

Covid's going to continue to do just fine.

SF Chronicle: Why catching COVID was the Christmas gift I didn’t know I needed (Archive)

From an Assist. Professor of Sociology at UCSF School of Nursing, who documents her existing autoimmune conditions in the article.

 

That made me laugh so much my tickly Covid cough came back.

 

That was one of the most bizarre articles I've ever read. Humans are really freaking weird.

 

Sadly vaccination does not eliminate any virus. WHO global vaccination plans that took decades to eliminate certain viral diseases have been disrupted due to the pandemic and the rise of medical disinformation against vaccination has not helped.

NZ had very high rates of vaccination for all common childhood viral illnesses pre-pandemic but for multiple reasons - poverty, distrust in government, anti vax/conspiracy theorists, it has gone down by 40%.

We are still getting free covid vaccinations. Few people mask. I use a risk/benefit approach if I do not wear a mask in social gatherings, but since I am housebound and have few visitors/outings I don't have to do this very often. It is the risk of my partner who is unmasked but thankfully always does RAT's if any sign of illness. I mask for GP/bloods.

I also have concerns about other viruses like influenza and HSV which I am not vaccinated for but can pay for one. But I can't protect myself from everything, there is an element of roulette for many things - I could have a fatal heart attack or stroke or develop cancer and we don't have the drugs available here to treat it or can't afford the drugs like wealthier countries.

Medical disinformation and the distrust of expert medical and scientific advice by politicians is one of my greatest concerns. Our country had a good response to the pandemic but it did cause civil unrest from conspiracy/antivax groups and some of these elements have influenced who got into our current coalition government. Due to economic changes due to the pandemic and world events, our government has had to make drastic funding cuts across many sectors including health provision. Nearly all the infrastructure (especially human resource) around the pandemic is being dismantled. Many of these people may not get jobs locally and will migrate to Australia or elsewhere.

We can only hope the main governing party will do the right thing when the next viral threat comes. If other countries do not contain outbreaks due to their political leader's stance on pandemics, one can only imagine and hope for the best.... Bird flu is a concern, we had a small outbreak of the nonfatal variety recently, brought here by migratory birds.