Coronavirus

[isobars]

A big part of my booster decision is based on a fact, an assumption, and policy:
Apparently a fact: A bout of Covid confers 27 times the immunity of the vaccine.

Assumption: I think I had Covid about 20 months ago, before we knew to verify or worry about it.

Policy: Agencies are trending towards offering boosters only to people with much poorer health than mine, despite my age and advanced cancer.

That's OK. It gives more time for facts to emerge.

[mac]

Imagine that, a sensible post from Isobars. He is referring to an Israeli study that has not yet been peer reviewed--that's where the figure of 27 times more immunity originated. Let's see how it plays out. I'm not aware that there is a reliable test that can tell whether someone has previously been infected and recovered, or what level of benefit their T-cells have to fight off a subsequent infection.

It makes me wonder whether we should eventually move back to an inactivated virus to get a more robust immune response. The early research showed that Moderna and Pfizer were much more effective than J and J. On that subject, from Healthline:

[GURGLETROUSERS]

Must just finally add - Sarah Gilbert (Oxford vaccine head) yesterday -

(Quote.) "We normally see that viruses become less virulent as they circulate more easily, and there is no reason to think we will have a motre virulent version of Sars-CoV2."

She suggested that "Illness caused by the virus would become ever milder, and there will be gradual immunity developing in the population as there is to all other seasonal coronaviruses."

The other coronavirus are causes of the common cold, and Gilbert said "Eventually, Sars-CoV-2 will become one of those."

She added more detail, such as, "There aren't many places for the virus to go to have something to evade immunity but still be a really infectious virus."

I hope she is correct because It is exactly what I want to hear. Natural developed immunity indeed!

[coboardhead]

[mac]

Other sources have said that there is no guarantee that the mutations in viruses make them less virulent. The mutation that gave us the delta variation has given us something much more transmissible, and of far greater concern when children are infected. The jury is still out as to whether or not the virus is more virulent:

[GURGLETROUSERS]

I hadn't wanted to add more but ---

On thinking things through, the Sarah Gilbert statement, if she is correct, would mean this pandemic would be dying out and almost over (in our vaccinated countries) by this time next year. I note that one of the other vaccine makers (forget who) made a similar claim, not quite for the reasons she predicts.

Our Chief Medical Officer is also a little less gloom laden lately, and though he insists that ALL school children will inevitable encounter the delta virus and spread it about (the current surge in cases) he thinks it will stay within 'acceptable' grounds. Even he thinks the corner will be turned when this winter is over.

If this is all so, then the virus, the majority of us having been vaccinated originally and joining in with the herd immunity safety will just be a relatively bloody nuisance (like flu) to be cursed at, but little worse.

It's amazing how the hope inspired by a little brighter thinking puts life back in perspective. It's as though a black cloud is lifting a huge weight of dread off our backs. Just lets hope as many as possible get through this coming winter surge in Delta cases, then we can kick this damned virus into touch! (Always assuming, of course, that the predictions are indeed accurate.)

[J64TWB]

Just remember how incredibly more contagious this is than seasonal flu. Not much more deadly at this point, but much much more contagious. That needs to recede if this is going away.

[mac]

GT—I think there is a little wishful thinking going on. Now I know I’m just a lowly engineer, and all I can think of doing is looking at trends…but this is not a gradual dying out.

[GURGLETROUSERS]

I KNOW it is not dying out YET! I did not say it was!

I quoted the Chief Medical Officer who stated that ALL school children are inevitably going to meet the Delta virus, and help to spread it. But both he, and Gilbert are looking ahead to beating the virus, possibly as early as next summer, but certainly before much longer than that. (Original vaccination drive, and herd immunity effect.)

Nobody is in denial that it could become quite serious this winter, but we have to look beyond that. If we listen just to the doom mongers we would be for ever locked into a cycle of lockdowns, and outbreaks of even more dangerous mutant Covid viruses. Gilbert and the Chief Medical Officer are disputing this view of life, and offering a little hope.

That, to me, is what makes us human!

[GURGLETROUSERS]

By the way, the death rate does NOT match the growing number of cases, (vaccine success), and many of the hospital cases are not in the state people were in the earlier waves. There has been quite an advance since then.