We’re likely to be dealing w/ covid in some form for years to come. We’ve basically known this since the beginning. The good news is we have to the tools to save lives in ways that minimize disruption & even have side benefits. The bad news is we’re not good at long-term thinking
https://twitter.com/sarahzhang/status/1342095492726059008
Global eradication of a respiratory virus that spreads in the absence of obvious symptoms & has an animal reservoir is extremely unlikely, even with highly effective & widely accepted vaccines. Opposite of smallpox, the only virus to be entirely eradicated through vax.
When I say we have the tools to manage life with covid long-term, I’m not talking about physical distancing & masks for the general population. Those are for when all else fails, as it has in 2020.
When I say we have the tools & those tools have side benefits, I mean this: to prevent & quickly contain outbreaks (of covid & whatever’s next) we must address workplace protections like paid sick leave & healthy housing that eliminates overcrowding....
We know how to ramp up universal, easy access to rapid test strips. Vaccines aren’t perfect, not all will accept them, rolling out new vaccines for new variants will take longer than ramping up new tests. We still need better testing & will need it for a long time to come.
We need public health infrastructure in place to quickly ID cases, trace back to find clusters & forward to stop onward transmission & provide wrap around social supports (paid leave/income replacement, food delivery, medical care) to enable the infected & exposed protect others.
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