this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2022
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COVID-19 Pandemic
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I think that it would be possible to write very similar articles about any other type of seasonal flu or cold virus, if we had the data available. It is important to remember that what made COVID such a dangerous virus was that it was significantly different from any virus that humans had been exposed to, making everyone highly susceptible, allowing it to expand in pandemic proportions. As the virus has become endemic in a large part of the world, it continues to accumulate mutations and we expect to see seasonal waves. But there is no reason to believe that this particular virus presents a bigger threat than any other common endemic virus.
I suspect that the reason why we still see waves of articles like this one is because a lot of people have invested a good amount of money into COVID-related infrastructure, they are interested in continuing pushing the narrative of COVID being a serious threat to human life through the media.
Don't get me wrong - the research itself is amazing. Tracking the evolution of a virus as it moves through a population in such fine detail is only possible because of the testing infrastructure that we have now, and the general public's willingness to come donate their viral samples. Having the ability to do this type of research at this scale for even more viruses would be great.
I feel like the bottom corner of that meme: "wait, you guys have covid related infrastructure?"
Hahaha, 'infrastructure' was not the best word to chose. We do have many testing centers from both the government and private companies, as well as vaccination facilities. But what I meant to say rather than 'infrastructure' was the collection of goods and services related to testing, hygiene, vaccination, compliance of businesses with COVID-related policies, etc. I will show a bit of my ignorance by admitting that I don't what the correct word is to describe that. "COVID economy"?
What I was trying to get at is a series of questions. Your voice has rung out with a chorus of other voices, telling us that covid isn't that bad, we can just forget about it. But logic dictates that I ask, who benefits from putting it out of mind and forgetting about it? Not the millions of dead. Not my friends and family struggling through long covid symptoms. Not me if I catch it and have to take time off work. The capitalist death cult definitely seems to think they benefit off forgetting it though.
Then I have even more questions. I live in one of the wealthiest nations in the world, and our response to the crisis was abysmal, eventually bordering on non-existent. We dropped the ball a long time ago, why this insistence on forgetting that it is/was possible to NOT condemn millions to death and suffering so that wealthy people's wealth and power machines could keep going 'brrrrrr?' Will we learn anything from this mass casualty event? Or just keep sacrificing blood and bodies to Mammon?
Significant practical difference is that covid is much deadlier than a regular flu, and it causes long term health problems. Around 4 million people in US are unable to work due to covid related issues right now, and overall life expectancy dropped significantly. Covid isn't just a respiratory virus either, it can attack many organs and cause long term damage.
Meanwhile, each reinfection makes it more likely that a person develops long term symptoms. This virus is running wild in the population, and as people keep getting reinfected, we'll see more and more people developing long covid adding to the millions who are already out of commission.
Not only is this a major healthcare crisis, but it also affects the available workforce in countries allowing this virus to spread unchecked.