Obviously the pandemic is not currently over and will not be in the foreseeable future. For this discussion, assume that the actual end of the pandemic would be when there is no more elevated risk of sickness/disabling relative to the norm before COVID.
The world has decided on a vaccine-only strategy where a majority of the populace does not get vaccinated which isn't going to do anything. The concept of herd immunity through "natural infection" is even less effective, as we can see with the many cases of reinfection. Even something as mild as mask mandates are non-viable in the US.
So, assuming no mitigations are implemented again... how does the pandemic actually end? Is it just gambling on eventually getting a mild strain that actually becomes "a bad flu"? Do we have any historical data on what kind of timeframe we can expect here?
Or is it just going to be like this forever?
I think you're probably right about long-term grassroots organizing, which is unfortunate given how long the timeline is on that site. If it takes 20 years of activism to get the necessary changes, how many people will even be left fully able-bodied?
I'm not sure of the comparison to HIV/AIDS specifically, though, given that the changes in behavior and PPE required to mitigate the spread of the two diseases is pretty drastically different, which will necessitate greater lifestyle changes. There is no safe way to eat indoors in a restaurant while preventing COVID infection, for instance. EDIT: Also obviously the public perception that COVID is acceptable is a massive hurdle when compared with the perception of HIV/AIDS (generally extremely negative).
I think something that might help us, and its honestly fucked up, is that a ton of people are going to be completely fucked up by COVID in the next year or two which could help change public perception on the virus or at least make more people sympathetic to a grass roots movement pushing for broader COVID safety (even if bourgeoisie media does not reflect it).
The HIV/AIDS comparison is more about pointing to past organizing efforts around a virus, but your absolutely right that we are dealing with a different beast regarding COVID.
There has definitely been some local COVID activism going on where I am at. While it is definitely in its early days I am already seeing it making some headway, even if the positive change is currently minimal. The most effective stuff I have noticed has been efforts distributing free masks or Corsi rosenthal boxes, and propaganda campaigns that either educate people on the virus or basically dunk on anti-maskers. The latter has actually been more effective than expected, but I live in a city with a lot of libs whom are pretty easy to sway on that stuff via dunking.
I'm not so sure, honestly. Two of my coworkers probably have long covid (general fatigue to the point that one of them has given up his old hobby of MMA after getting COVID a year ago) and their reaction when asked about it was essentially "Well what're you gonna do? We have to go back to normal. :grillman:" Maybe the numbers will tell.
Glad to hear some people are at least getting the ball rolling; there's nothing near me.
Who knows may be you can be the one that starts the COVID safety organizing effort in your area. All the stuff I mentioned are done with pretty small crews, and they have been effective for their size.