I am not saying it contradicts, just thought it is worth noting. I am not having a battle here. :)
In any case... from what I heard, the omicron variant is somewhat close to common cold, and that it causes mild symptoms. If that is the case, then this is good news, especially if this applies to everyone, or most.
If this omicron variant is indeed much less severe, then would it not be a good thing for as many people as possible to go through it and develop immunity?
Some recent findings and whatnot:
> How SARS-CoV-2 evolves over the next several months and years will determine what the end of this global crisis looks like — whether the virus morphs into another common cold or into something more threatening such as influenza or worse.[1]
> Yet researchers expect such gains to become ever smaller. Scientists measure a virus’s inherent ability to spread in an immunologically naive population (that is, unvaccinated and not exposed to the virus previously) by a number called R0, which is the average number of people an infected person infects. Since the start of the pandemic this figure has jumped as much as threefold. “At some point, I would expect that increased transmissibility will stop happening,” says Bloom. “It’s not going to become infinitely transmissible.” Delta’s R0 is higher than seasonal coronaviruses and influenza, but still lower than that of polio or measles.[1]
Might be of interest:
> That evolutionary path, towards immune evasion and away from gains in infectivity, is common among established respiratory viruses such as influenza says Adam Kucharski, a mathematical epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “The easiest way for the virus to cause new epidemics is to evade immunity over time. That’s similar to what we see with the seasonal coronaviruses.”[1]
and
> A more likely, but still relatively hopeful, parallel for SARS-CoV-2 is a pathogen called respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Most people get infected in their first two years of life. RSV is a leading cause of hospitalization of infants, but most childhood cases are mild. Waning immunity and viral evolution together allow new strains of RSV to sweep across the planet each year, infecting adults in large numbers, but with mild symptoms thanks to childhood exposure. If SARS-CoV-2 follows this path — aided by vaccines that provide strong protection against severe disease — “it becomes essentially a virus of kids,” says Rambaut.[1]
and
> Influenza offers another scenario — in fact two. The influenza A virus, which drives global seasonal influenza epidemics each year, is characterized by the rapid evolution and spread of new variants able to escape the immunity elicited by past strains. The result is seasonal epidemics, propelled largely by spread in adults, who can still develop severe symptoms. Flu jabs reduce disease severity and slow transmission, but influenza A’s fast evolution means the vaccines aren’t always well matched to circulating strains.[1]
> But if SARS-CoV-2 evolves to evade immunity more sluggishly, it might come to resemble influenza B. That virus’s slower rate of change, compared with influenza A, means that its transmission is driven largely by infections in children, who have less immunity than adults.[1]
That said:
> “There may be multiple directions that the virus can go in,” Rambaut says, “and the virus hasn’t committed.”[1]
So I suppose we will see. I am hoping for something like common cold. Mild symptoms. I am also hoping to get rid of some of these mandates and this COVID-19 pass stuff in the future, but once it is in place, do you think it is likely that they will revert it? I do not know, but I hope they will.
I cannot get the vaccines for health reasons, but I am unlikely to get a medical exemption as my country is full of idiots. Other countries do give exemption to immunocompromised people, whereas my country prioritizes them. I wonder if I could get a religious exemption. But yeah, the vaccines might give me a flare-up of whatever I have, and I would rather not risk it. My immune system is in a tough spot with all the inflammations going on, on top of some autoimmune disease. I hope to treat some I can.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03619-8 (Beyond Omicron: what’s next for COVID’s viral evolution, 07 December 2021)