Coronavirus may never go away, even with a vaccine

[Arkansas Granny]

There’s a good chance the coronavirus will never go away.

Even after a vaccine is discovered and deployed, the coronavirus will likely remain for decades to come, circulating among the world’s population.

Experts call such diseases endemic — stubbornly resisting efforts to stamp them out. Think measles, HIV, chickenpox.

It is a daunting proposition — a coronavirus-tinged world without a foreseeable end. But experts in epidemiology, disaster planning and vaccine development say embracing that reality is crucial to the next phase of America’s pandemic response. The long-term nature of covid-19, they say, should serve as a call to arms for the public, a road map for the trillions of dollars Congress is spending and a fixed navigational point for the nation’s current, chaotic state-by-state patchwork strategy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/27/coronavirus-endemic/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most

[Jirel]

1. Not sure why anyone would think otherwise.

It’ll stay a threat, no doubt. We have to vaccinate as much as possible, and develop better treatments.

[Arkansas Granny]

3. In the end, I think we will have to assess how best to protect ourselves and how much risk we

are willing to take as far as social gatherings and public places. I would like to see a policy to make masks mandatory in public, but I don't think that will happen. Too many see that as interfering with their freedom.

[Miguelito Loveless]

2. This is true, but not just for the reason they specify

The principle reason is that even if they come up with a vaccine as effective as the smallpox/polio vaccine, 30%-40% of the country will refuse to be vaccinated, making heard immunity impossible.

As I have said before, if polio were a disease today, Jonas Salk would have been driven from his research by death threats, and pictures of children in iron lungs would be dismissed as "crisis actors".

We begin a long slide into the Second Dark Ages, led by people who refuse science, and live in a world of make believe and magical sky fairies.

[SCantiGOP]

4. Influenza has a vaccine, colds don't

and both come back year after year. I don't see any reason this would be any different.