I thought he was implying that 50% of the population are anti-vaxers.
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He was. And I was implying that it’s only 25% of the population will take it (as they need 2 doses)
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Nope, I believe it’s here to stay in one form or another.
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My feeling is that we are going to develop some modestly effective vaccines with a functional protection period of 6-8 months. Once that happens, the world is going to face two fundamental scenarios . Behind Door 1, we have something like the 14C, where a disease flares into life every few years and causes mass death and chaos, but likely more accelerated due to modern transport and communications. Behind Door 2, we have a coordinated effort to suppress and eradicate, mass testing around outbreaks with ‘cauterization’ efforts based around testing, tracking, tracing, and vaccination. That will be a sustained period of global effort.
Based on geopolitics, and our demonstrated ability to address climate change, I expect Door 1. On the other hand, a US government actually coming to the table in 2021 could change a great deal, if there is anything left of what was once the CDC.
I am not particularly worried about the mutation scenario, that family of virus don’t bounce around the way the influenza ones do.
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There are already several different strains though. Is that not quite the same as a mutation?
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I think the simple answer is… nobody knows for sure…!
This was written almost 30yrs ago…
An existential feel to it… But basically saying… be prepared for what is to come…!!
“things are gonna slide… slide in all directions”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D97OxHZzBeQ
My worst fear is a suppressed or diluted threat. Instead of killing over 2 millions in a year, it will keep killing 400-500K every year. Some of the associated factors being:
- Vaccines being costly for most of the people
- Cheap, less effective vaccine used by poor nations
- Adulterated or fake vaccine used by poor nations
- People moving between those nations and those with vaccine
- The primacy of lifestyle and profession overlooking health issues
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The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) says there are around four times as many people catching Covid than anticipated.
A “reasonable worst-case scenario” is used by officials and the NHS to plan for the months ahead.
It had estimated 85,000 deaths from Covid over the course of winter.
But an official Sage document, dated 14 October and published today, reveals we are in a worse position than expected.
The technical term for our current situation in the UK is, I believe, “We are buggered”.
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I think it is substantially the same. My understanding (nowhere close to my field of course) is that a coronavirus is not going to mutate as frequently, and is less likely to radically change when it does, as compared to other virus we know. It could still happen, of course, but the same properties that makes it so resilient against treatment (the ‘crown’ pattern, for one), likely mean that a competitive advantage derives from mutation extremely rarely, so most mutants don’t reproduce any more effectively than the main stream.
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If ever there was a time for the ‘Tarly, you had one job’ meme…FFS, they could not even get the worst-case scenario right? That is the easy part.
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Well you can’t say you weren’t warned.
I told you not to let her room out to migrant workers. 
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I think that is one thing that will disappear fairly quickly if we see the 14th century scenario play out. Countries are not going to allow movement from countries with ineffective control regimes, because the resultant costs will be enormous. We already see that, we will just become accustomed to it. The Canada-US border has been among the most open in the world for over 100 years, it has been close to sealed since March, with widespread support here. The West will likely wall itself off from much of the world, despite being ineffective at controlling it to date. It won’t take much for a France now to want to close its doors to Muslims, coronavirus, migrants from Africa, etc., etc., just as one example.
At the same time, I think the prestige of the West has been shattered. As a Canadian, historically closely aligned with the UK and the USA, my respect for either is lower than I ever imagined it could be in my lifetime. I have to think in much of the world, that feeling will only be stronger. People will look to countries that are competent, such as China, and naturally those values and ways of thinking will acquire a new global profile.
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So what you’re saying is the UK was ahead of the curve in pushing for Brexit?
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It’s a valid point - are there going to be any constrains placed on Freedom of Movement within the EU? If not it effectively makes the Schengen countries open to substantial migration issues within that area but also from outside Schengen, it reduces it to being only as effective as the country with the least robust screening system at its points of entry.
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Hope everything goes as best as possible for your family
On a slightly different note, I hope NZ continues to have ‘success’ with deterring this virus
I suspect Schengen disappears, or EU bloc border controls become rather intense, or countries get kicked out of Schengen. The Mediterranean migration situation is likely to become even more problematic than it is now.
I doubt it, but we’ll see
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Anything to avoid that bedroom tax eh?
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I think the most likely scenario is an EU level agreement on border entry controls into the bloc, with perhaps temporary suspensions of movement for hotspots. The EU is already well on its way to that.
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Temporary measures, perhaps. And border controls on that basis is/was already possible anyway.
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