The second season of everyone’s favorite ongoing international medical drama is now available.
It was inevitable, as anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of basic biology could have predicted, that covid-19 was not going to stay covid-19. Back in ancient times (around 2019 or so) it was at least somewhat understood by the general public that the seasonal flu (also a type of corona virus, by the way) would mutate into a new strain; thus rendering existing vaccinations largely obsolete. This arcane knowledge of yesteryear has, seemingly, been lost to the ages.
Covid variants, namely the “delta” variant reportedly identified in India, appear to posses a heightened capacity for transmission. This is also within reasonable expectations for a virus that has been met with such a massive, coordinated containment response after the initial outbreak. Viruses, like all things subject to evolution, have particular section-pressures placed on them that steer their adaptation. Viruses that cause very salient symptoms are more quickly identified and eradicated. This, in turn, incentivizes the virus to become less detectable by becoming less lethal to the host. This allows the new strain to spread without drawing too much attention to itself.
Unfortunately, however, due to the politicization of virtually every aspect of health and science at large in the current political landscape, many with influence on social media and other forms seem reluctant to acknowledge the fact that vaccination efforts may be moot in the face of new strains.
Talk about “permeate pandemics” is a semantic game; covid is endemic. It will remain in circulation around the globe for the rest of the time. No amount of government spending or vaccine deployment will put an end to what is, at the end of the day, a man-made natural disaster – the larger disaster being the response to the virus itself. What remains to be seen is if the people of the world, who have been made to suffer economic ruin and violations of their rights for over a year will allow the constriction of their world to continue.
