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Didn't Australia have very low peaks or am I thinking New Zealand?

Low peaks are easy to hit again without it being too problematic.

If India was hitting previous peaks I'd think we have a massive problem.

Can you give some context for Australia?

If more people took that approach it might have helped early on but eventually it was going to come down to a couple different end games.

1. We eradicate COVID-19 (sars-cov_2). The fact that there are many different coronaviruses out there would indicate this isn't likely to work. The willingness of this thing to mutate would also seem to be a big speedbump in this road. It's not smallpox.

2. We beat it back so it's uncommon in this country, like polio or mumps. We'd measure outbreaks in the hundreds and it makes the occasional news report instead of being among the leading causes of death. This MIGHT have been possible with an earlier response that was more restrictive and heavier vaccine use. However, other nations did this and still didn't manage to beat it back before it moved into the 3rd option. China is still trying for zero COVID-19.

3. Endemic. COVID-19 is here for the long haul. It's in the population. Mothers are going to pass their immunity onto new children. Survivors built antibodies. Vaccinated people built antibodies. Less deadly variants managed to sneak under the radar. We'll be stuck with this long term and probably forever. Coronaviruses are adaptable little jerks. Some just cause cold symptoms. Others cause SARS. Like it or not, we are here.

That I've never heard. The story is usually brought up as an example of how men don't understand periods.

But if something is alarming, what is there to be done at this point?

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Yes, but it’s very difficult to be infected with two very similar virus stains at the same time, so a more infectious variant (like Omicron) would get to most hosts first, so the other strains would keep hitting hosts that are already infected with the more infectious strain.

Arthropods have a whole class of neurons that work like this, getting inputs and sending outputs through the same terminals. I don’t think it’s common in vertebrates though.

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The only issue with that approach is long covid is still a thing even in mild cases, and we still don't know enough about how it's caused or the best way to treat it

You can end up with similar issues with any respiratory virus, but covid is unique in that it happens more frequently, is more severe, and covid itself spreads more than the cold, flu, or other common respiratory viruses

Yeah I hope it becomes a combo vaccine. Since the uptake now is low, it might boost the numbers a bit. But the same people who won't take a covid vaccine are probably the same that won't take a flu vaccine. And it's not like flu vaccine numbers are high to begin with

Wouldn’t a virus do just fine if it re-infects a few people on average before the host dies?

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It's not about the number of cases out there but rather the severity. If everyone is getting covid but no one is getting sick enough to die or need intensive care, there won't be a need anymore for a vaccine. The natural life cycle of any virus is for it to become more infectious and less dangerous to the hosts since that's the best way for the virus to survive. The multitude of viruses that cause the common cold have already undergone that evolution. Influenza is a very unique case because of the structure of the virus that allows recombination among and between strains from different species means novel flu strains can happen any time without much warning and our immunity can be very variable. There are other outliers like HIV but most viruses that have ever infected humans have become relatively inert. A great example of the most extreme form of becoming inert is JC virus which is entirely asymptomatic and inconsequential unless someone is prescribed certain immunosuppressive medications. If you do get put on one of those medications you have to be tested for it otherwise it can reactivate and cause progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy which is almost universally fatal.

And as time progresses, the batters learn to go for base hits instead of home runs because it maximizes their time on base instead of killing the host.

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Good analogy, but I'd compare it more to something like "could Homo Erectus come back???" The answer is "not really" because it already exists in us, today. Its like asking whether your great, great grandfather can come back.

Older versions of the virus can't come back because they've already evolved into the more modern version of the virus we see today.

This is why I've been sure to get the lastest booster and am still relatively careful. I don't want to be a cog in the damn viruses' mechanisms. I want my immune system to be able to say "this isn't free real estate".

Cause if you get infected, even if it's asymptomatic, you are a carrier/vector at that point. And you give the virus a chance to thrive, and mutate, and possible mutate to a worse form (viruses can be fatal as long as that still allows them to thrive, and direction of mutation is not always to safer, less fatal forms. Really it's whatever features allow them to outcompete their competitors).

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