There were 33,244 fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2019 in which 36,096 deaths occurred. This resulted in 11.0 deaths per 100,000 people and 1.11 deaths per 100 million miles traveled.
This is out of approximately 3-4 million auto accidents of all kinds per year. So you could argue that given there is only a 1% rate from auto accidents nobody needs to wear seat belts or use their brakes, because freedom. Or something.
Honestly it is hard for me to guess where we'd actually go from here.
"endemic" in this context is kind of a fuzzy thing. It may (or may not) mean that we will have less frequent "waves" of the disease. It may (or may not) mean that those "waves" won't be as bad as the current one.
My understanding is that between the vaccine, those who have had the original strain, Delta Varient , and now Omicron, enough people will have some Covid immunity that the virus will become endemic.
The science will tell us when this pandemic becomes endemic.
Dr. Gottlieb from the Phizer board speculated that January would see the beginning of the end to this pandamic although without knowing that Omicron would be so transmissible.
He figured the Delta strain projected infection rates would do the trick.
Lets hope so.
What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding--Nick Lowe
Can't talk to a man who don't want to understand--Carol King
there's a certain amount of a messaging culture, or hopeful thinking by the urge to start calling this an 'endemic'. The absurd part about that messaging is that it could easily translate into relaxing the use of the tools that are now working. Lessons from Omicron are that mutations are still coming at us and a renewed acknowledgment that the after effects of long covid affect even those with minor cases. Omicron screwed with the testing efficacy of otc kits which is a lesson we still are learning. It's been like a triple whammy where the vaccines have told our immune system what to look out for so we have a much faster response time to it vs the unvaccinated where it takes their immune system time to recognize it's being attacked, translating into the vaccinated with Omicron are contagious earlier and the test kits don't pick up on that; then more people are walking around spreading a variant which itself is right below the all time champion measles for being contagious.
At this point it makes more sense to simply look at everyone you encounter as infected.
Australia has about 92% vaccination rate, Omicron still has hit the nation hard. Rather than opting to start calling Covid endemic I'm thinking we'd be better off to start making the conversation about how this is impacting the global economy and national security.
Why would we think that every strain/variant after Omicron would be less deadly?
Even if, on average, over time it is true that COVID will become less deadly, "on average" and "over time" leave a lot of wiggle room. And likely a lot of very sick or very dead people.
Yep, good questions. What is it? These are known unknowns and of course some unknown unknowns. I think I have probably twisted it, but it was a good one by Rumy and that is not Rumi that I mean. You know, Donald.
David Bonn 