it doesn’t kill as much in the acute phase because it mutated to form fewer syncytia in the lungs, but it does just about as much damage to notably the cardiovascular, immune, and nervous systems. and it does still damage the lungs enough to be bad news over the course of many infections. vaccine effectiveness depends on levels of neutralizing antibodies and those don’t persist long term with most vaccines. and the current vaccines and likely future vaccines won’t reduce transmission enough to end the pandemic, because they mostly don’t provide mucosal immunity and for most vaccines they don’t work well for all variants. and the variants are incredibly contagious, on the level of measles. you can get it over and over again and it will do more damage each time. the result will be a lot more deaths from long covid, including thromboses, heart attacks, and opportunistic infection/cancer due to immunosenescense, the risks of which go up after every reinfection and likely won’t be counted as covid deaths by the government. this is especially a risk for schoolchildren who tend to transmit diseases like crazy.
additionally the rapid antigen tests often give false negatives early in the course of infection, when you are supposed to start antivirals. you can sometimes get more accurate results by swabbing your throat and then your nose, but almost no one knows to do that.
what you can do in order of importance: wear a respirator, ideally a reusable one with full face coverage, when you’re around other people. do fit testing or fit checks on your respirator and get clean shaven. disinfect your respirator periodically. if the other person was smoking and you could smell their smoke even a little bit, you need to be wearing that respirator. avoid large gatherings especially indoors. if you have someone over open a window, run a portable air filtration unit, and have them wear one of your extra kn95 masks. get vaccinated with Novavax, the Mountain Dew Baja Blast of Covid vaccines, and lie about your identity to get it if necessary (tell them you haven’t been vaccinated, don’t have ID or health insurance). if you do get infected, rest thoroughly for as long as you can and don’t attempt to exercise or exert yourself. don’t give in to getting infected over and over, because you will likely die from that sooner rather than later. remember, you are trying to defend yourself against social murder.
The rates of long covid are insane, and that doesn’t even factor what it will look like after say 10 infections. As of right now the risk for an infection turning to long covid is around 1/6, and that’s for fully vaccinated. So if we just accept covid and let it rip in the US that would be a solid 55 million people or so, as children are at risk as well. And again that’s not counting repeated infection, just assuming everyone got it once and is vaccinated. If even 10% of those are serious the healthcare costs, missed labor, etc alone could cause massive damage to people and the economy. It’s also much worse for those already disabled, and US has insane amounts of chronic disease.
we are already seeing some of the economic impact but with no plan to put public health measures into place it will only get worse. I’m not sure that the government is going to be able to economically stimulate our way out of it either.
it doesn’t kill as much in the acute phase because it mutated to form fewer syncytia in the lungs, but it does just about as much damage to notably the cardiovascular, immune, and nervous systems. and it does still damage the lungs enough to be bad news over the course of many infections. vaccine effectiveness depends on levels of neutralizing antibodies and those don’t persist long term with most vaccines. and the current vaccines and likely future vaccines won’t reduce transmission enough to end the pandemic, because they mostly don’t provide mucosal immunity and for most vaccines they don’t work well for all variants. and the variants are incredibly contagious, on the level of measles. you can get it over and over again and it will do more damage each time. the result will be a lot more deaths from long covid, including thromboses, heart attacks, and opportunistic infection/cancer due to immunosenescense, the risks of which go up after every reinfection and likely won’t be counted as covid deaths by the government. this is especially a risk for schoolchildren who tend to transmit diseases like crazy.
additionally the rapid antigen tests often give false negatives early in the course of infection, when you are supposed to start antivirals. you can sometimes get more accurate results by swabbing your throat and then your nose, but almost no one knows to do that.
what you can do in order of importance: wear a respirator, ideally a reusable one with full face coverage, when you’re around other people. do fit testing or fit checks on your respirator and get clean shaven. disinfect your respirator periodically. if the other person was smoking and you could smell their smoke even a little bit, you need to be wearing that respirator. avoid large gatherings especially indoors. if you have someone over open a window, run a portable air filtration unit, and have them wear one of your extra kn95 masks. get vaccinated with Novavax, the Mountain Dew Baja Blast of Covid vaccines, and lie about your identity to get it if necessary (tell them you haven’t been vaccinated, don’t have ID or health insurance). if you do get infected, rest thoroughly for as long as you can and don’t attempt to exercise or exert yourself. don’t give in to getting infected over and over, because you will likely die from that sooner rather than later. remember, you are trying to defend yourself against social murder.
“endemicity” is a capitalist propaganda lie. don’t fall for it - the pandemic is not over. at best it’s epidemic, which is still a real bad situation.
Wow, thanks for the info. I appreciate the detail.
I read a while ago that Covid is like SARS and HIV in one. Sounds like that’s not the worst analogy.
Could’ve been one of the doctors who was there in China, very early on, when the west was still waiting for Italy to implode before doing anything.
if you want more thorough and up to date info I recommend the Death Panel podcast and Don Ford’s substack.
The rates of long covid are insane, and that doesn’t even factor what it will look like after say 10 infections. As of right now the risk for an infection turning to long covid is around 1/6, and that’s for fully vaccinated. So if we just accept covid and let it rip in the US that would be a solid 55 million people or so, as children are at risk as well. And again that’s not counting repeated infection, just assuming everyone got it once and is vaccinated. If even 10% of those are serious the healthcare costs, missed labor, etc alone could cause massive damage to people and the economy. It’s also much worse for those already disabled, and US has insane amounts of chronic disease.
we are already seeing some of the economic impact but with no plan to put public health measures into place it will only get worse. I’m not sure that the government is going to be able to economically stimulate our way out of it either.