Do you think the world will be rid of COVID and all its variants this year?

Take off your mask if you're not sick or around other sick people. Go outside and visit others. Forgot about who is or isn't vaccinated. Stop waiting with bated breath for each and every rise and fall in cases counts. Case counts are an absolute meaningless metric used to propagate fear and uncertainty. That's the best way to get "rid of covid".

Variants will be around, as a common cold. Japan and some other places have reached that point already. But it will still be used to push various agendas. Never let a virus go to waste!

This thing will never ends.

But soon people are getting tired of it, and it will be forgotten.

But the media and the vaccine industry will keep this thing alive as long as possible to keep their business running.

I think Covid is here to stay at least for many years to come.

But the media and the vaccine industry will keep this thing alive as long as possible to keep their business running.

Of course, we must all continue to get a shot every six months to prevent deadly variants from coming back... is what they will say...

Variants will be around, as a common cold. Japan and some other places have reached that point already.

Yes! The virus is still here, but Covid19 (the disease) in Japan is over.

Take off your mask if you're not sick or around other sick people

And live in denial of the evidence? experts, doctors and scientists saying your recommendation is counterproductive and dangerous are much more worthy of trust.

Variants will be around, as a common cold. Japan and some other places have reached that point already. But it will still be used to push various agendas. Never let a virus go to waste!

Using a conspiracy theory is the worst kind of excuse to convince people to discredit the findings of science, without convincing data well validated your prediction holds no real value.

But the media and the vaccine industry will keep this thing alive as long as possible to keep their business running.

Calling the scientific consensus "media and vaccine industry" is a too transparent mischaracterization aimed to mislead people into thinking the warnings and measures do not come from scientists and doctors, this is obviously invalid.

Yes! The virus is still here, but Covid19 (the disease) in Japan is over.

You have been predicting this since more than a year and a half, and been wrong about it. Better to listen to the scientists that have the data to actually make professional predictions about the pandemic.

The best case scenario we can hope for is that C-19 becomes like the flu - seasonal, highly contagious, but not so deadly. And annual vaccinations should be enough for most of us. But I think we are still a long way off from that. Probably we should worry more about what the next virulent global pandemic will be and when. :(

It will never go away because that's what the elites want, total fear and control. The life you had before 2020 is over, you will never have a normal life again. Masks, forced vaccination, division and hate will be a normal thing for the rest of our lives. It is certainly sad but the quicker everyone realizes this the the lesser the pain.

It is incredible that it has been clearly said by experts since the beginning of this pandemic, and constantly during these two years, this virus will not go away, but the mass media has constantly been pushing for this idea of Zero-Covid as what we should be focusing and as the measure to "go back to normal", which is why here, 2 years latter, even with more than 5 different types of vaccines for SARS-CoV-2, with different approved treatments and now even anti-viral medication, with most of the population in many of these countries being not only fully vaccinated, but now even "boosted", with now a new variant that is way less serious than the original wild type back in march of 2020, we are still talking as if thing were the same OR WORSE than back in March of 2020.

This is a pandemic of the misinformation, doom and gloom and the exaggeration.

The topic is a personal opinion, so there is nothing wrong with expressing it like that, even if wrong. The problem is to misrepresent a personal, inevitably biased, opinion as if it was scientifically supported when it is not. This is specially bad when using baseless, wrong statements from a disgraced scientist that have repeatedly lied and falsified information to personally profit. Doing this can mislead people into considering this mistaken opinion as if it was scientific when it is not.

So long as morons refuse to get vaccinated and/or wear masks, there will be new variants. One that will have the ability to spread like Omicron, but the strength of Delta (or worse).

Nice strawman there dude. It almost sounds like "All the cool kids know that to be true". I wonder how humanity survived pandemics before there were vaccines, if vaccines are the only way to overcome a pandemic.

Nobody is suggesting that humanity won't survive this pandemic with or without vaccines. Only that vaccines will prevent more death and suffering. The ultimate survival of the human race has never been an issue.

But nice strawman there, dude.

Nobody is suggesting that humanity won't survive this pandemic with or without vaccines. Only that vaccines will prevent more death and suffering. The ultimate survival of the human race has never been an issue.

But nice strawman there, dude.

I don't think you get it.

He has constantly been talking about how all these measures are necessary to overcome the pandemic, and vaccines are just part of that, as he says.

* they have been used during the pandemic and still millions have died, that is why other measures are still *necessary

In fact, his statements have been for the most part more anti-vaccine than what the data and experts already say, since he supports the continuation of many other measures even after vaccination, even if those measures have never been shown to be as effective as vaccines, or have much of an effect after vaccination.

 the terrible timing of the relaxation of other measures to prevent transmission explains why the country is seeing an infection surge

The ways he describes it, he seem to believe that the reason why there are any kind of infection surges is because of "relaxation of measures", which is not at all supported by any objective evidence or proven data, since global measures stringency and global infection rates are all over the place.

I forgot to say this, which is the most important point, but the way a pandemic ends is, if

The pathogen disappears

or

The pathogen becomes "endemic".

The whole point of this question was, "will the world be rid of covid", and it has to do with these 2 points.

From what I've seen, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, but virusrex seems to believe that we need to get rid of covid, in other words, that the way to end this pandemic is only with option 1., or that we need to now and forever be implementing these measures as long as "there is the possibility" of SARS-CoV-2 spreading again, as he said in this comment:

One, why would it need to be endemic? the whole point is that becoming endemic is not the only kind of ecological balance between a pathogen and its host.

Not only that, he seems to believe that a virus becoming endemic, and herd immunity, vaccine related or otherwise are not linked, when they clearly are.

Vaccines definitely can help returning to a more normal life, even if the virus becomes endemic

Virusrex has constantly avoided discussions about the virus becoming endemic, and what would be the standard to show that, which is why he continues to say that even 2 months after Omicron was first found that "we still do not know anything else than it is more contagious", and he continues to push for continued restrictions.

I wonder how humanity survived pandemics before there were vaccines

Um, with a LOOOOOOOOT of death. For example:

How many people died during the Black Death? It is not known for certain how many people died during the Black Death. About 25 million people are estimated to have died in Europe from the plague between 1347 and 1351.

We only survived through sheer numbers. There were roughly 370 million people on the planet at the time, meaning 6.7% of the planet's population died, and imagine if there had been air travel to have spread out of Europe.

Humanity would have survived Covid as well. But a LOT more people would have died, or lived with long covid.

And a message from the CDC: "The **H1N1 virus that caused that pandemic [1918-1920] is now a regular human flu virus and continues to circulate seasonally worldwide."** (see: Google...N1H1)

Luis David Yanez!

If you work in any kind of 'science' for awhile, you run into these zealots like Rex who believe their minds encompass the entire world and, if they don't know it or believe it, it can't be true and insist ONLY what they have 'approved' from their particular sources and are capable of understanding is 'true' without ANY doubt and ANYTHING else is akin to 'blasphemy' and met with the resistance and intolerance of the fanatic ranting about the gospels. It is this kind of mind from which 'science' divorced itself ~700 years ago and, thereby, grew to become the underpinning of our entire 'civilization'. We must live with them but, if we LEARN for ourselves, we do not have to take them seriously and they can be relegated to the dustbin of hysteria...

And, MODS, so I am not the only 'victim' of your APPARENTLY arbitrary policies such as tolerating direct character attacks by some while censoring opinions of others contrary to some invisible and difficult to interpret standard of topicalness. Good to know...

OOPS! (see: Google...H1N1)

As long as there are so many people who are not getting the vaccine (either by choice or location) and not wearing masks, then the answer is sadly no. COVID will continue to mutate and adapt to vaccines. Hopefully, it won't mutate to the point to where vaccines become completely ineffective. That would really be a disaster, and we'd have the anti-vaxxers, in part, to thank for that if it does happen. As long as COVID lives to adapt, mutate and fight another day, we have to pray that science can keep ahead of it. If science doesn't, then things will go from bad to worse really fast.

So long as morons refuse to get vaccinated and/or wear masks, there will be new variants

Blaming the unvaccinated for the variants is like blaming those who do not use antibiotics for the appearance of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Mass vaccination with monovalent vaccines is likely the major cause of immune escape mutants; it was predicted and that is exactly what we got.

I could swear I had already commented this here but

@rawbeer

Mass vaccination with monovalent vaccines is likely the major cause of immune escape mutants; it was predicted and that is exactly what we got.

That is exactly the opposite of what we got, all the variants that have appeared until now come from badly or no vaccinated countries, your comment is dangerous disinformation.

Getting rid of COVID is not impossible yet, but realistically is too difficult now to become a goal. Vaccines reduce deaths, social distancing reduce the number of cases, eventually both things will become less important but at the moment both are necessary.

Case counts are an absolute meaningless metric used to propagate fear and uncertainty. That's the best way to get "rid of covid".

so basically stick your head in the sand and ignore it, covid will magically disappear.

Covid really does love the ignorant

Not likely.

I work in hospitality and all of our projections have us returning to normal business volumes by 2024 at the earliest, possibly later. People will be hesitant to travel for a long time, even after the "all-clear" (assuming that ever even happens). Most of us aren't allowed to travel ourselves, even though our business is predicated on others doing so. Despite these restrictions, it doesn't seem like things will improve for a while.

I don't foresee being able to visit family overseas for a long time yet, sadly for some of them that probably means I won't see them again before they pass on. At least not in person, video calls always exist.

Here to stay. Get used to it. Stop the hysteria. And stop with the myth that ongoing Covid is the fault of the unvaccinated. Especially when you know nothing about "the unvaccinated"

Unless therapeutic drugs are released en masses, and vaccines are powerful enough to reduce damaging effects, C-19 will go on and on as a threat to society. Eventually, this will happen as with many other illnesses, but we are still a ways off from this. The varients can only go so far until they have common, treatable traits. Countries like the US though need to stop speaking of C-19 past tense, "During Covid we had.." It remains prevalent right now. I for one though would like to know why it is SO minor in Japan though...

Good question, FireyRei, why has Japan been so relatively 'successful' so far?

Masks, forced vaccination, division and hate will be a normal thing for the rest of our lives. It is certainly sad but the quicker everyone realizes this the the lesser the pain.

While I don't think this virus will disappear, I'm not resigned to thinking that masks, vaccination, division and hate will be a normal part of the rest of our lives unless we want that to happen. We can fight back by peacefully refusing to comply with the ridiculous orders - especially when we see the people who give them flout their own rules and bubble their way through BS explanations.

There will always be Group A people who mindlessly comply no matter how nonsensical the order/mandate or whatever, Group B who won't comply even when the rules are sensible (after the initial 2 weeks to "flatten the curve, lockdowns etc no longer fall under "sensible rules"), Group C who won't comply with bad rules but will follow good ones. And then theres's Group D, the group who'll go along with bad rules begrudgingly to save their livelihoods, but will change when they see the tide turning away from the crooks making the bad rules, they'll join C. Group A is a problem, because they're easy for governments and the media etc to manipulate, and are happy to arrest/dob in anyone they believe is disloyal - like anyone who questions lockdowns, jab mandates etc.. Group B are the unstable fringe radicals at the extremes of the political continuum. C & D are the hope for ending the madness. The other day I went to the snow and saw plenty of people, including resort staff, taking a pretty relaxed attitude toward mask rules and distancing despite all the signs and announcements. That was a good thing.

Covid will always be here just like the flu, or influenza. Whoever clicked yes does not understand what virology is.

The world will be locking down in the next few weeks as hospitals are being overloaded with very few actions being done to prevent it - even South Africa was under a semi-lockdown for the past few months.

From what I've seen, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, but virusrex seems to believe that we need to get rid of covid

Nothing could be more wrong, I have repeatedly said that the only thing that is necessary is for the risk to be reduced to background levels (so effective measures can be reduced or abandoned) making a complete misrepresentation of what other people have written makes up for invalid arguments.

The world may never be rid of COVID, but it will eventually be rid of the excess of risk, even if this may require a change of lifestyle, or better treatments or periodical vaccination.

Had a very good chat with my doctor this morning, where I now live in Italy. I live in the worst hit city of the whole country (the first wave). For the past year rumors about hospitals making money from Covid patients have been circulating, and one friend, a surgeon said she knew the same but was unable to get straight answers from superiors.

This morning my GP said the same, that yes, according to her colleagues at hospitals, they make profits from hospitalised Covid patients, particularly those who die from it. She told me that many of those who were recorded as dieing from Covid actually had not, but it suits better the hospital to report deaths as so, as they make money from the government.

I am pro-vaxx, pro-mask, in fact it was my wire (Japanese) and I who first wore masks out at the beginning of this when people laughed at us for doing so. Anyway, I am no conspiracy theorist, and I want to comply (18 years in Japan made me more compliant:D), however, it is becoming more and more clear that Covid-19 is benefitting many, many people...

*my wife

You can't kill a virus! Covid is here to stay so get use to it and look for ways to control it.

What about in countries like the UK and Japan where hospitals do not receive additional payments?

Where did I say all of them are doing it? And how do you know it's not happening in the UK? I'm not saying it is, , but what Fiery Rei said about Italy aligns with what Malone said about the US. Listen to the interview for the nuances.

We're probably never going to get rid of covid - it's going to be like the flu. Covid will become endemic, and we're all going to eventually get it, like the flu. It's time we all accept this reality and stop thinking we're going to vaccinate our way out of it.

Infections rates up. Death rates are Up. Denial is up.

No, not over this year.

definitely not.

this virus-as same as millions of others-will stay here and we will live real life with it.

as this virus it will mutate everytime.

good thing is/or at least seems so/that latest mutation named omicron is weak one and fatalities are far less than caused by original covid.

take care everyone,build your body immunity and live your own life-now.

Covid will be with us for a few more years. The symptoms of each new mutated strain seem to get a little less severe. It will eventually mutate to a little more than a cold, but it's going to take a couple years.

Well, Omicron is actually for most people just a cold. My doctor has multiple patients with Omicron right now and said most of them basically have 'cold' symptoms, no more. Still, safety first: don't expect to be one of the majority, you could be in the minority who get it badly.

Not by a long shot. But I hope I'm wrong.

You can't kill a virus, if scientist could they would have gotten rid of the common cold years ago. Sorry but COVID is here to stay, so get use to wearing the pamper on your face.

but the mass media has constantly been pushing for this idea of Zero-Covid

The Biden campaign and presidency were based on this notion. Someone sold Uncle Joe the Brooklyn Bridge and now he can’t find any buyers for it.

Getting rid of the virus is considerably difficult because it struggles to survive changing its form as a variant. Also corona itself has been put on a list of "concern" for years, though I understand the recent ones are quite different from those before. Therefore, instead of finding the way to defeat the virus as an enemy, we need to think about how to deal with it in order to live safely each other. The virus is way older than human beings, more than three billion years in history on earth. To learn from the virus is better way to get along with it.

The world may never be rid of COVID, but it will eventually be rid of the excess of risk, even if this may require a change of lifestyle, or better treatments or periodical vaccination.

Thanks for clarifying. So you believe that since we won't be able to get rid of covid, we need restrictions forever. Because the covid becoming "background level" you talk about is completely arbitrary.

I mean, we are in a point were the death rate of COVID-19 has completely collapsed, and still, according to you, "we are not there yet".

It sounds to me like just the risk adverse trying to take complete control of everything that goes around the world, for their own irrational anxiety.