Last week I was pleased to see in my town, very few cars in the streets and people observing good distance. It was the week before the Easter holiday. It was maybe 2 – 3 weeks tops since we started talking about and adopting lockdown isolation.
But also last week our pissweak government started to bleat prematurely about “flattening the curve” and saying it looked like we were getting on top of it. I am going to make you a prediction, SARS-cov-2 is going to do a bit of an Easter resurrection of its own. Thanks to this dip in lockdown / social distancing, there’s going to be a spike in new cases.
Town was almost back to pre-lockdown traffic over the weekend and Monday, Tuesday, even today. So we can’t just blame the ‘bloody tourists’ for the rebound.
With some people predicting that with the best results we will still have to have distancing in 2022, the government were irresponsible and have created a false sense of safety. In the period 1918 – 1920, the Spanish Flu pandemic gripped a large part of the world, infecting about a quarter of the world’s population at that time.
The flu killed a sizeable percentage of the world’s population (between 3% and 6% by most estimations) and most of those deaths were caused by the second wave of the flu (which some say may have mutated slightly or been spread by troop movements.)
And here is our Muppet government saying hooray hooray we’re beating this virus! and giving people that bravado to get out there and reinfect.
Some places have already seen second wave cases. Some places have seen relapsing COVID-19 cases. (COVID-19 is the disease caused by SARS-cov-2)
But our Pentecostal Prime Muppet thinks an Easter miracle will save his ass again. We’ve turned the corner, we’ve flattened the curve, rejoice for the Lord Of The Land Of The Gold-Plated Toilet is good.
I can only say that I believe our scientists over any of our politicians for just about anything, and I intend to try and stay isolated until the effing cows come home if that’s what it takes. There are only three ways out of this scenario, and seeing relapsing means there’s probably no immunity from SARS-cov-2.
If we can’t rely on ‘herd immunity’ or a vaccine, the only other way is to wait for the virus to die off. And that – given spurious advice such as that from the Australian government – could stretch out to many years.
Quote from the font of all wisdom, Facebook:
“The curve is flattening; we can start lifting restrictions now.” == “The parachute has slowed our rate of descent; we can take it off now.”
I am very doubtful that the efforts for a SARS-cov-2 vaqccine will bear much fruit. We don’t have all that much success with viruse vaccines do we? The flu shots we get each year are good for several mutations, maybe the last two years’ worth, but viruses are very mutable and we can’t keep up.
Remdesivir was developed for the Ebola and Marburg virus outbreaks and shows some promise for SARS-cov-2 and that’s the one bright spot on the horizon – it might become a game-changer. In general viruses mutate each time they reproduce, just that most mutations don’t amount to anything so different to the original.
However, that’s also how the virus may die off, by mutating itself to the point where it’s no longer viable. Or it may mutate and the surviving virus becomes immune to Remdesivir. And in the process also no longer affect humans.
Anyway – the long and the short of it is that we just have to wait it out unless there’s a vaccine. In time – a long time – the virus will either die on surfaces or become harmless. But if we do stay in lockdown, do observe hygiene, and do have patience, COVID-19 will just fade away.
Legacy
SARS-cov-2 will leave its mark on history, but it will leave a bigger mark on out customs and cultures.