Why we just lost battle with covid?
 

We just lost. It is fact cannot be denied. Here my points:
1) covid was made political issue
2) very poor information
3) vaccination is not enough, let me explain this: new strains are a head of us - seems they need updated vaccine, and new strains will dominate this year, so we need a millions of doses of updated vaccine, those who were already vaccinated seems will need to take a shot of new updated vaccine - to gain immunity again new strains
4) poor international cooperation which relates to point 1) but not only it is needed say to establish common policy between say Europe and America - to fight virus having worldwide strategy not per country
5) disinformation, here example is so called herd immunity, but this is where scientists should be blamed, some claim there is such thing, others there is no - and it is discussion about principles - but solutions are needed.

But we lost battle not war. Let think in that way. It is war which will supposedly last for years. How long? It depends on how fast governments reach similar conclusion. But I am sure we will win. Perhaps I will not see this victory on my own eyes. As many I can be a victim. But I am quite positive. It is one lost battle and enemy caught us unprepared. The good point is that after this will be over we will be always ready.

Edit: it sounds little officially but these are my views, perhaps also poor choice of words - but I guess this is due to my age, when I was forty years old young boy called me grandpa - imagine how I feel now, zombie grandpa?

The Pfizer vaccine seems effective against the new variants.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...study-suggests

Look at this https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021...dated-vaccines

Edit: I would add situation is changing very fast, statement made weeks ago can be no longer valid.

Broad and overconfident statements provoke broad and overconfident replies: You are wrong.
Additionally, yours is fearmongering, which mine isn't.
There's no common ground for discussion.

I was afraid of such reaction. But positive thinking won't work here. We need grasp of reality. Say I read that in Burkina Faso so far was vaccinated 28 persons. In USA 3,7% of all population. This is not my imagination. For new strain to spread is enough 3 - 4 months. Scientists claim is even more contagious. It is not to fear on not - just we need to consider options. Sooner we start to talk better. This is problem to solve - not to expect someone will solve it for us.

there could be dozens of variants by now, most with similar levels as the very first. there may well have been multiple variants as far back as February 2020. but they would not be noticed because they act the same. and most of them will likely be affected by the immune system after taught by 1 or 2 doses of the now existing vaccines. if not already, there may eventually be a variant that can survive the immune system enough to spread to others. that variant, surviving and spreading, can then produce new variants. so the war may not be over in just a year or two. i suspect we'll see this virus around forever.

From my limited understanding...

The experts do not understand how long natural immunity lasts. There have been people reinfected that have recovered.

The variants may be more contagious but not necessarily more deadly. The immune response is lessened with people that received the vaccine but it is still effective.

No one really knows how long the vaccine will stay effective.

While the vaccine is effective for the recipient if exposed they might not get sick but could still be contagious to others. That is why everyone needs to be vaccinated even if you were exposed previously.

Noone has all the answers and the variants need more studying.

All the real experts and some not so much all say herd immunity is real. It is known to work with measles and polio etc. They don't know what it will take to get it with covid, maybe as much as 85%.

Since i live in the US i will use those numbers... The US administration claims about 900,000 people are being vaccinated a day which might include second doses. The ~ number of people minus those below the age of 16 in the US is 250 million. It will take at least till the end of the year to get to herd immunity levels. If more vaccines are produced and more approved that would help.

I would be quite glad to get a shot of any kind of vaccine. Yesterday I went down to my local vaccination centre (it's about a 20 minute walk) and was told that my appointment had been cancelled and that my GP should have told me not to come. So I went home very grumpily and rang the surgery and was told that, yes, they had heard that the day's supply of vaccine hadn't been delivered but it was the job of the vaccination people to ring round and tell patients not to come. They made a new appointment for me today. I wonder what will come of it.

From what I've seen so far, we don't deserve to survive this.

PS: This time it got done. In fact the whole procedure was quite efficient, a great contrast with yesterday's snafu. But I won't be given the second shot until April, so I'll still have to be careful.

This virus will become like the flu virus. You will probably need a jab every year or two to provide the cover. In time, better treatments and vaccines will appear. But for now we have a handful of first gen vaccines that will give us a bit of protection and ultimately should we get it, make it less likely to kill us.

But yes, this virus like almost every other one will be here with us forever, unless someone works out a way to 100% wipe it from existence. I don't see that happening in my lifetime, nor maybe in the next 100 year. But maybe some day. Or maybe someday we will bioengineer ourselves to be permanently immune to it.

It depends on which country you're in - some countries are doing much better than others. If you take New Zealand for example, from what I understand, they've virtually eliminated covid altogether. Because they didn't make it a political issue in the first place, and just done what they needed to do. I think they've even lifted nearly all of their restrictions too. However, covid was certainly not only made a "political issue" in the US of A, it was also weaponized by trump and co for his political benefit (eg. masks, etc).

Where I live, it's given the government a perfect excuse to setup mass surveillance on the population (eg. QR codes in every supermarket that you are supposed to "sign in" with) - where we already were pretty much a police and nanny state as it was/is. So to me, that's the biggest and most long term danger - as who's to say they won't think of some other "justification" to keep that in place after covid is gone?

Yeah. In my one horse town. I am finally on the list. Still have to wait for weeks to get the 1st vaccine.

When I was in the military . I did not concern myself on what was in that long line or air syringes before going over seas.

Seems they aint killed me yet.

Perhaps this is better explanation (from wiki) the total population of New Zealand is around 5 mln. While total area is 268,021 km2. According to data from WHO total number of reported cases is around 2000. Compare this with data for Poland - population around 38 milions and area 312 000 km2. We in Poland have around 1.5 mln total cases. Look here https://covid19.who.int/table

If you have a look at Australia (where I live) in that same WHO link, you'll see that the total number of cases is currently around 28,750. Australia has a total population of around 24 million people. While the state of Victoria had a "second wave" most of the rest of the country has not seen a "second wave", let alone a "third wave". Most restrictions in the state I live in (which isn't Victoria) have either been lifted or eased. I don't know of any current active cases in the state I live in.

Therefore, that's much better than the likes of the US of A, UK, etc. Even Russia is doing far better compared to the US of A and Brazil.

Here is the story in Poland. In summer number of infection in Western Europe countries surged to thousands per day. In Poland it was around 600 cases per day. It was in time of tight lock down. Finally restriction were dropped. Our politicians congratulated themselves for how good they dealt with epidemia. Then in autumn number of cases rocketed from level 600 cases to 20 000 per day. Now government plans to ease restriction because there is "only" 3000 - 4000 new cases per day.

And that is it to a tee, as soon as the restrictions end people think they can go back to do it as they had. Total stupidity to think that somehow the disease just went away and no precautions are still needed. Until it is done we all need to stay the hell home unless absolutely necessary to go out the door. And when you do go out make sure of the mask and hand washing, but these simple steps are somehow against the rights of the a-holes among us who think it is their god given right and responsibility to spread disease. They whine on here now about their vacations and how it is unfair to have to quarantine for two weeks upon return, that is how entitled these morons think they are.