President Joe Biden said Friday that he is planning to request more money from Congress to develop another new coronavirus vaccine, as scientists track new waves and hospitalizations rise, though not like before
President Joe Biden said Friday that he is planning to request more money from Congress to develop another new coronavirus vaccine, as scientists track new waves and hospitalizations rise, though not like before
These days the coronavirus isn’t really severe anymore right? Not saying that research should be stopped, but wondering if those who were going to die due to coronavirus sir to other health complications in combination with COVID probably already did die, which would be a majority of the deaths. (Yes, it is quite brutal but I believe this is true). These days even masks are not worn.
Every COVID variant has the possibility to be more transmissible and more deadly. Taking this with the cavalier attitude you want to is ridiculous. You sound like the “it’s just the flu” people, who ignore the fact that 50 million people died of the flu in 1918.
COVID needs funding because COVID is even more serious. We don’t know how to treat it as well as we do influenza, which is well-studied and nowhere near as novel.
So it doesn’t matter if it isn’t severe right now. The potential is not worth taking lightly.
Don’t forget about that often ignored long COVID possibility either. The research is suggesting that each time you get COVID your chances of having more issues down the road go up. I don’t know if the risk is increased that much yet, but it’s a worrying trend that it seems mainstream media have stopped reporting on (probably because the economies needed people to get back to work).
SARS-CoV-2 isn’t really any less severe, if anything the newer variants are more aggressive, but in a way that’s a good thing. The original strain had a particularly long incubation period, meaning an infectious person could do a lot of social mixing before the first symptoms appeared, and the same for all the people they came in contact with, leading to an explosion in cases that could overwhelm healthcare systems. There were varying reports of two weeks all the way up to a month.
Now, between more aggressive strains, and pre-existing antibodies from vaccines and/or prior exposure (even if “outdated”) the immune response kicks in much faster and people know they have it much sooner and there’s less opportunities for spread (even if some assholes don’t care and mix anyway). That combined with awareness of the virus and better treatment for the manageable number of people who get seriously ill means society is able to cope much better while “returning to normality”
Still sucks for individuals who get severe cases even now.
Whether you think COVID isn’t that bad anymore or not, it’s sucks to get it. I would 100% take a shot every year instead of the flu shot if it meant I wasn’t bedridden for weeks