Of course the hope is that by mid-to-late 2022 Covid will have settled into a low-prevalence, low-morbidity…

Of course the hope is that by mid-to-late 2022 Covid will have settled into a low-prevalence, low-morbidity endemic state. I keep coming back to the fact that the only vaccines we currently have, are waning for Omicron as well. Even the 3rd dose. /1

Vaccines based on earlier versions of SARS-Cov-2, which could just as foreseeably be out of puff by mid-2022. And then what? A 4th dose might buy time, but data on those isn’t great. And is there the public appetite for another population-level vax rollout anyway? /2

It seems to me that this current round of ‘it’s over’ is the most dangerous of all. Because it really may mark the endgame of meaningful action against this virus, because populist governments have consistently undermined public capacity to meet this challenge. /3

Leaders have, right from the beginning, deliberately framed action against this pandemic as some form of oppression. And that’s cumulative, and now many say (maybe rightly) that ‘people won’t go through this again’. So we may reach the second half of 2022…/4

…with ineffective vaccines, and…nothing else? Civil unrest, and widespread infection and disease. It’s one not unlikely scenario. And public policy is about scenarios. But libertarian governments don’t believe the public is even a thing. Buckle up. 5/5