Also, a “third booster” and now “annual boosters” have been announced, as predicted.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/annual...

https://mobile.twitter.com/guscost/status/134299803981702758...

From the beginning, people have said that it's somewhat similar to some common cold viruses.

It is a common cold virus by now (look up “Evolutionary Dynamics of Viral Attenuation”), and I have been saying that for more than a year.

Really? How many people are hospitalized each year due to the common cold?

What the theory of "Evolutionary Dynamics of Viral Attenuation" implies is that a lot more people were dying of colds when it first entered the human race.

There is also mathematical evidence that compares the probabilistic error rates of COVID replication to the amount of mutations already encountered and it is looking good for us. COVID mutation rates are very high and most if not all have been encountered in humans. While some resist anti-bodies better it appears that none will do so entirely and thus COVID will devolve to a "common cold" as humans themselves are selected out (multi-generationally) for higher amounts of resistance.

It's basic biology in action.

It is important to remember that almost all diseases work this way (possibly ALL diseases if we could morally afford the extremely high death rates of some of them e.g., a 99.9% death rate for some diseases like rabies).

See sibling response, but also the answer to your question is “more than you would probably think”:

https://jcm.asm.org/content/48/8/2940

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4181476/

"By now"? Where is the evidence that SARS-CoV2 has decreased its severity through mutation?

Getting strong “15 days to flatten the curve” vibes.

There were, uh, people arguing, 12 months ago, that this characterization was bad:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22908490

Taiwan's had 1070 cases! And concerts and mostly normal life.

(do note that I'm not calling for endless lock downs there, I'm calling for control measures that we didn't really work very hard to put into place; we could have done a lot more to reduce household and workplace spread and so on)

“It’s just a tiny inconvenience, don’t be selfish!”

The only way I can interpret this is that you believe the cost-benefit is not there without a substantial altruistic motive. Do you think that, and if so, why?

Please don't take HN threads into flamewars. They're tedious and nasty, and we're trying for something different here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

“It’s going to go away”

Probably true. Too bad a big part of the population is so easily inconvenienced and seemingly unable to understand a complex situation given the information landscape that exists.

Are you saying that feeling makes sense? Because it makes no sense to me.

It makes perfect sense. People want to get back to normal and every time we do what we are told needs to be accomplished the goal posts move. People are fed up of the constant changes and are starting to lose faith in the experts.

>every time we do what we are told needs to be accomplished the goal posts move

It sounds like you feel there is or was some sort of bargain going on.

I think I recognize the feeling. For instance, I went for about a decade with no cavities, and I continue to go to the dentist every six months, so I have felt like there was a bargain in some sense - brush and floss and get a checkup regularly, and I won't have any problems.

But in between x-rays, it turns out I had some serious decay and had to get a root canal.

This produced a strong feeling of betrayal, but at the same time, it's obviously childish and irrational to feel this way, isn't it? I wasn't betrayed by my dentist. Just by fate, if you will.

Your analogy is not correct. Our public health officials explicitly told us to do X and we could get back to normal. The officials then changed what needed to be done to get back to normal. It would be like if your dentist just said if you get a cleaning every 6 months you will not get a cavity. You then get a cavity and they say you need to brush your teeth once a day and get a cleaning every 6 months to avoid cavities. Next time you go the dentist you have a cavity so they say just brush your teeth, get a cleaning every 6 months and floss and you won't get a cavity. Next thing you know you have a cavity and they add brushing your teeth twice a day. This is not a feeling, but explicit statements by public officials.

I do not believe either the dentist in the analogy or the public health officials can actually know with any certainty what will happen in the future. Which is why I do not believe they just have made the statements they made. They can perhaps provide a sense of what could happen, but that is not what happened.

If the officials just said MAYBE after two weeks we can get back to normal if XYZ have happened then I, and many others, would have far less issues. We would understand that XYZ needs to happen prior to returning to normal. The problem is they explicitly said we just need to do X to get back to normal.

When can we actually go back to normal? There doesn't appear to be an explicit end goal that hasn't changed.

Our public health officials said just stay at home for two weeks and we can get back to normal. Then don't wear masks. Then always wear a mask. Next it was just wait until it gets warmer in the summer. Then it was just wait until the vaccine. Now some of them are actually saying wait until there are no new cases despite also saying that it will be with us forever and will become seasonal like the flu. If they actually want no new cases and if this does become a seasonal thing then we will literally never return to normal. That is the problem that many of us see. If they were just honest and straight forward with us from the beginning and may not argue we should remain locked down forever there would be far less issues.

>This is not a feeling, but explicit statements by public officials

It is a feeling. How do I know? Because you use the vague phrase "public officials".

When people are talking about a group that is not specific, they are necessarily talking about feelings as facts don't constrain it.

I’ve dined indoors since getting my shots. We are going to travel extensively this summer as well, although only in the US for now.