Re: Long-term view
I am no expert on these things but one does have to wonder if our response of trying to suppress Covid is actually benefitting the virus. Left to it's own devices, a virus will spread, some or those infected getting ill, some experiencing little or nothing and some dying. All the time some form of immunity begins to develop. In this case it appears not to be a great deal or prolonged initially but we don't really know. Man, then speeds up the point at which general immunity is reached at a level that is sufficient for the virus to become a background issue with the use of a vaccine. The issue with allowing the virus to spread naturally with little intervention is that it is seen as unacceptable due to the risk to life. We have cures and mitigations for so many illnesses or viruses now that there is a general assumption that we can pretty much "cure" anything, after all it is just a bug. The generations that suffered Measles, Smallpox, Polio, even 'flu are pretty much gone so the prevailing view is that we can make Covid go away "beat the virus". One does not beat a virus, it is managed until it becomes a background issue through natural immunity, vaccinated immunity or attrition.
If, because we have neither had enough of a lockdown to actually stop the spread or the opposite and allowed to to spread naturally, has Covid evolved to overcome our inefficiencies and half-hearted attempts at suppressing it? Probably it has which is why the new variant has a higher transmission rate.
If, as we are led to believe places like Wuhan in China and Korea have been able to control the virus infection rates is this because the state is able to bully the population into doing the draconian measures that were needed? In those countries the population is going to behave very differently from that in a democracy.
I don't thing we will know for a long time, it ever, the true source of Covid due to the issues of dealing with China. Whilst I am not a believer in conspiracy theories, I think there is growing evidence that some sort of mistake may have been made at the labs in Wuhan that focussed on SARS viruses, permitting Covid to become established in humans. This could have been as simple as test animals not being disposed of properly or stolen, ending up in the meat market. That gives you the vector for the animal->human jump.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
