What annoys me is the theory that many people seem to have of what I have termed the ‘never ending pandemic hypothesis‘. The theory seems to be that Covid-19 infections will provide no immunity and Covid-19 if it mutates will remain as or become more deadly, meaning people will keep on getting reinfected until they eventually die from it.
As far as I know, there has never been a pandemic like this. Either the virus mutates to become weaker (e.g Spanish flu) or individuals gain enough immunity for it to no longer be a major risk for them (e.g Measles). Therefore for Covid-19 to be the one virus were these factors do not apply seems to me to be extremely unlikely.
I agree. History sometimes provides good guidance as to what will happen in the future.
At the moment we seem to be roughly following the lines of historical pandemics by social distance and restricting travel, and at some point we are going to get to the point where the weakest get killed off, and the rest build up enough immunity (maybe with the aid of a vaccine) that the virus runs out of people to infect. There is a lot of extreme criticism on here about lockdowns, masks and restrictions, but what is the alternative? Do we just remove restrictions and say we have to accept a high death toll and let the virus run its course, which almost sounds like saying the weakest are expendable? That might be a brutally logical solution, but it is not an ethical solution.
The periodic lockdowns seem to me analogous to putting meat in a freezer. When you purchase meat, it might have some bacteria on it (not enough to make you ill if you cook it properly). Putting it in the freezer doesn't kill the bacteria, it just makes it dormant and stops it multiplying. Take the meat out of the freezer, it defrosts and the bacteria that are still there begin multiplying again, which is why you are advised not to refreeze defrosted food. If you put it back in the freezer, the bacteria go dormant, but with a higher population than before. The bacteria is still there and presents the same health hazard, and all refreezing the meat does is slow down the multiplication, you still have to deal with the risk when you want to cook it and eat it. Periodic lockdowns like the imminent one seem to be doing the same as constantly putting the meat in the freezer, then easing lockdown is like defrosting the meat again.
