Let’s get real about the current situation. To be fair to the optimists; the pandemic will wane, but the virus will prevail. Being at least three times as deadly as the seasonal influenza combined with continuous mutations the strain circulating today will be a kinder garden in comparison.
Chill out - I am not here to depress you further - I am here to report plausible futures.
Let’s try to accept a new virus, probably the result of a lab-accident, spreading across the planet. Don’t be shy, think of Jack London or Stephen King and try to accept the virus as the common cold, only 10 times more deadly. My instinct is to reduce the risk of transmission and minimize the death toll. What’s yours?
Historically more than 50 infections diseases discovered in the last 50 years; Ebola, HIV, MERS-CoV, SARS, West Nile, ‘Avian Flu’ (H5N1) and ‘Swine Flu’ (H1N1) are just the beginning. Recently H1N2v, H3N2v, H5N2, H5Nx, H6N1, H7N3, H7N7, H7N9, H9N2, and others has become globally and chronically spreading.
The ‘Spanish Flu’ (H1N1) killed at least 20 million, possibly 100 million, in 1918-20; ‘Asian Flu’ (H2N2) between one and four million in 1957-8; ‘Hong Kong Flu’ (H3N2) a similar number in 1968-70; ‘Russian Flu’ (H1N1) another 700,000 in 1977; and ‘Swine Flu’ (H1N1) between 150,000 and 570,000 in 2009.
And now B.1.1.7. How do these pandemics compare historically? And does it matter? What would Penti Linkola or Robert A. Heinlein say?
Even experts lack the usual optimism:
“We’re going to need to test people who have potentially clinically compatible symptoms with Covid-19 forever,” said epidemiologist Osterholm during a webcast on the state of Covid-19 testing hosted by Axios.
If this was a D&D scenario, I would give it a 3 out of 10 on existential risk and go for an overall strategy of “stay the fuck at home”.
Scenarios for reopening/unlocking “normality”:
Lockdown business strategies.
Universal testing, sequencing, and response.
A culture of distance.
International vaccine passports.
Global, regional and local vaccine production strategies.
Medical treatment and rehab for long-covid.