Principally, sure.
My family is multiply immune compromised with poor vaccine response, problematic vaccine reactions, and at elevated threat for post-COVID issues (together with acute and everlasting flare up of pre-existing circumstances). The poor outcomes I see in folks with the identical diagnoses are usually not captured generally statistics on COVID-19 outcomes. So I really feel like my head is in an identical similar place because it has been. Loads of the individuals who had been most prone to lengthy hospitalizations and horrific ICU deaths already died, however the virus isn’t simply secure to catch now for individuals who can’t depend on vaccines to stop poor outcomes.
Transmission is actually excessive proper now with a brand new circulating pandemic variant and one other one most likely on the best way for this winter (by wastewater estimates, which traditionally tracked fairly nicely with case knowledge, greater than 1 in 40 folks within the USA is presently contaminated). WHO acknowledges the pandemic as current tense; so far as I do know, it’s solely talked about as previous tense in political contexts?
I’ll say that even for wholesome folks, I’ve not seen proof to assist the concept that COVID-19 has comparable ramifications to the flu for any threat cohort. Apart from all the opposite variations between the viruses, one bout of the flu sometimes confers immunity that lasts 5 years or so, so folks simply don’t catch it as usually over the course of their lifespan. Extra folks find yourself with new power circumstances after COVID than after flu. Extra folks find yourself with dysregulated immunity and for longer; extra folks expertise a brand new power sickness, organ injury, or a cardiac occasion put up an infection. Simply counting lengthy COVID syndrome and never different issues, the bottom current estimate for lengthy COVID following an an infection is round 3%.
My group continues to endure from absences and closures throughout these large waves as a result of some persons are simply too symptomatic to work sick. COVID-19 is somewhat uncommon in that the best way it undermines immune perform invitations coinfections, so winter waves are particularly tough with folks getting one an infection after one other (not simply COVID) and generally greater than one after the other.
Even earlier than there was ever a vaccine, many individuals made the remark {that a} majority of sufferers skilled the virus as only a chilly and made the argument that it was positive to stay life as common. Many individuals did ignore it from the beginning and accepted the dangers to themselves or others.
When the vaccine got here out, the promise was that it will cut back transmission sufficient that folks wouldn’t must masks or isolate (and most public indoor areas wouldn’t want to satisfy increased air flow or filtration requirements for the air) with a purpose to curb transmission, stop new variants from arising, and defend immune compromised folks in the neighborhood. However as folks dropped suppression measures, the virus shortly evaded immunity to the purpose that there have been absolutely vaccinated tremendous spreader occasions. Extra folks have died since then than died earlier than. However vaccinated individuals who had been low threat to start with had been statistically even decrease threat as soon as vaccinated, and once more the acute signs had been all the time chilly like for a majority of sufferers, so that they determined to just accept the dangers that others had already accepted.
All trigger mortality has continued to spike after each wave for so long as we’ve tracked it. Vaccinated folks fared higher than unvaccinated within the stats, however the one demographic whose mortality wasn’t elevated above pre-pandemic norms had been individuals who hadn’t had COVID in any respect.
I respect that folks get to decide on their very own dangers to absorb life, how a lot time they wish to spend underneath the climate, and what odds they discover acceptable for what outcomes; persons are in all types of various conditions.
