COVID sucks, don't get me wrong. I don't want people to die from it and I don't want people to suffer from long COVID. It's also here to stay.
The question I think about is when do we start to accept the new normal? Are we going to go through shutdowns for 1-3 months every winter going forward?
Right now, we have a prophylaxis (i.e. the vaccines for 5+, because under 5 don't count as real people just yet), we have a treatment (the MAB from Pfizer and I think another one though not enough of it for people) and we have a relatively mild, if very contagious strain of the disease. I find it hard to see when we'd have a better time to try and accept that we're into a new normal...
FIFY
Sure you've got a point. When do you think society should start moving on then? Once kids under 5 are vaccinated and manufacturing capacity for the treatment has picked up?
- Vaccine for all
So your opinion is that we should have vaccines for every last breathing person on the... planet? Or just the country? Also, do you really expect 50.1% of the population to agree to that given that would absolutely be a "new normal" for how to deal with pandemics? Also, better get on the phone with Fauci and Biden. Fauci is definitely signaling that we will go back to normal-ish when the virus is endemic not pandemic and that the trigger will not be vaccines for all.
Hi! When I am uncertain about what someone meant, I look for clues in the surrounding text.
Clue 1: The conversation started because the first poster noted there were vaccines, and I clarified it's actually only vaccines for 5+.
One might reasonably and correctly infer from this clue that I am quite annoyed that many people talk about the vaccines being available for everyone when, in fact that they are not. They might be able to correctly interpret my statement as "vaccines available for all" but if not, they can look for more clues...:
Clue 2: Later down in my post, I write: "I would also add 90-95% of the country is vaccinated, but that's never going to happen in the US because people are [mod edit]"
This would seem to further support the idea that above I was not talking about 100% of all people in the country (much less world) vaccinated, if here I suggest that idea, but immediately recognize it will never happen. (Now, note, just because it may never happen doesn't mean that it couldn't be on someone's personal list for "ideal time to go back to normal".) My normal go-list doesn't need to be the same as anyone else's, including yours or Fauci's. I provided mine because scottish asked. When mine is met, I will "return to normal" and eat inside restaurants, travel on planes, have friends over our house etc. again. You may do all of those activities whenever you like. I will not come to your house to stop you, even if I have opinions about whether this is contributing to spread beyond what our hospitals can handle.
Thus no, I do not *expect* that everyone will get vaccinated, but I sure do think it would help the country get back on its feet if everyone in the country who has access to a free-to-them vaccine took it. I also have strong feelings about those that refuse to get vaccinated on the one hand, but on the other hand demand that we return to "old normal".
Finally, we've never* had a world wide pandemic of this extent before, so, um, yeah, it's completely legit from my perspective to have a "new normal" response to dealing with it.
*It remains to be seen if the Spanish Flu is at all comparable. Considering our increased medical knowledge, technology (treatments to vaccines), we ought to have had a substantial leg up over the Spanish Flu pandemic, but as time goes on it and we head into the 3rd year, it seems more deadly/more long-term consequences.
