As we are now in a "let it rip" strategy, I hope decision makes will remember that:
1. Disease is much milder in people with immunity, but by no means "mild" in many
2. Not all can be protected via vaccines and the virus is no less dangerous to them
3. Access and equity matter
4. Viruses mutate and new variants will emerge - with unknown virulence and phenotypes (although immune evasion is a given)
5. We don't understand the mechanism(s) of variant emergence
6. Immunity wanes - and we don't understand the potential role of antigenic sin/imprinting
7. Viruses don't have ears, so it doesn't matter how many times we tell it "it's over" 🤦.
If we really want to ensure that we can get "back to normal" ASAP we need to science the shit out of this and keep innovating like there's no tomorrow.
I somehow deleted one of the most critical points...
8. While we understand "acute" disease relatively well, we have a poor understanding of "long" COVID - including after post-vaccination infections
To this latter point, the news is rarely reassuring
twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1491514278817374210?s=20&t=5J_FcesUKrgIzdwijHEUaQ
Adding this absolutely brilliant commentary by @ArisKatzourakis on what "endemicity" is, and, importantly, isn't.
Make sure you read it - if you haven't already.
nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00155-x