It's a tough question to answer because at the rate we're going, we're going to get really close to herd immunity by the summer but then just kind of hover in that really close range for a while. Forget the doomerism over vaccine rollouts, that's largely been fixed and shots are getting into arms at a pretty solid clip right now to the point where you'll have like, 40% of the population vaccinated by May or June and 60% of the population vaccinated by the fall. Forget the variant doomerism, too. The fact is that the vaccine provides enough protection against the "vaccine resistant" variants. The variants are "vaccine resistant" the same way that a Kevlar vest makes you bullet resistant. If you get shot enough times with a vest on, you still die. The vaccine rollout has been fine, and the variants aren't going to beat the vaccine (though they will make what's left of the pandemic much deadlier). And even if they did, we can modify the vaccine to handle mutants.
And since we're vaccinating the highest-risk people (elderly) and those who transmit the virus the most (essential workers, by nature of their jobs) first, that can absolutely kill outbreaks. New infections and deaths will probably be 10% of what they are now by the summer and 10% of that by the fall. But you need more than 60% of the population immune for herd immunity, and that's where things get dicey. There are experts who put the herd immunity threshold at 70%, but I've seen estimates as low as 60% and as high as 90%.
25% of the population can't get the vaccine because it's not approved for kids. That means, right there, we can't get above 75% immunity even if everyone took the vaccine. And vaccine hesitancy is then your next-biggest problem. If 10-15% of the population refuses the vaccine, then bam. That's enough to make it impossible to crush the virus entirely.
But "normal" is as much as question of our political will as much as it is actually beating the virus. What do you do in a world where, say, 10 or 20 people a day die to COVID and most people are immune? That daily death count is fewer than the number of people who die on highways, and we don't shut those down. It's less than the number of people who die from the flu, and we don't shut down for that. Do you still have masks and distancing? Maybe, at least in places where localized outbreaks happen. Do you still have lockdowns? Probably not, but you might have the occasional short quarantine.
It's a tough question to answer because at the rate we're going, we're going to get really close to herd immunity by the summer but then just kind of hover in that really close range for a while. Forget the doomerism over vaccine rollouts, that's largely been fixed and shots are getting into arms at a pretty solid clip right now to the point where you'll have like, 40% of the population vaccinated by May or June and 60% of the population vaccinated by the fall. Forget the variant doomerism, too. The fact is that the vaccine provides enough protection against the "vaccine resistant" variants. The variants are "vaccine resistant" the same way that a Kevlar vest makes you bullet resistant. If you get shot enough times with a vest on, you still die. The vaccine rollout has been fine, and the variants aren't going to beat the vaccine (though they will make what's left of the pandemic much deadlier). And even if they did, we can modify the vaccine to handle mutants.
And since we're vaccinating the highest-risk people (elderly) and those who transmit the virus the most (essential workers, by nature of their jobs) first, that can absolutely kill outbreaks. New infections and deaths will probably be 10% of what they are now by the summer and 10% of that by the fall. But you need more than 60% of the population immune for herd immunity, and that's where things get dicey. There are experts who put the herd immunity threshold at 70%, but I've seen estimates as low as 60% and as high as 90%.
25% of the population can't get the vaccine because it's not approved for kids. That means, right there, we can't get above 75% immunity even if everyone took the vaccine. And vaccine hesitancy is then your next-biggest problem. If 10-15% of the population refuses the vaccine, then bam. That's enough to make it impossible to crush the virus entirely.
But "normal" is as much as question of our political will as much as it is actually beating the virus. What do you do in a world where, say, 10 or 20 people a day die to COVID and most people are immune? That daily death count is fewer than the number of people who die on highways, and we don't shut those down. It's less than the number of people who die from the flu, and we don't shut down for that. Do you still have masks and distancing? Maybe, at least in places where localized outbreaks happen. Do you still have lockdowns? Probably not, but you might have the occasional short quarantine.
Senator Kelly instensifies
Really though, thanks for that input. My supply of thoughtful, levelheaded optimism has run low and that’s what I needed today.