Thread by @1goodtern

What am I afraid of?

I'm afraid of the *third bump*.

Let me explain.

The first bump started in 2020.

It was the bump in illness.
The first bump caused by covid.

Illness has always been around.
But Covid *bumped* the levels.
Significantly.

The bump is lots more people sick.
The bump is some more people dying.
The bump is more people disabled by disease.

That is a bump, and the first one included a couple of waves, and ended in early 2021

We used practical, physical, 'non-pharmaceutical' (not medicine) ways to deal with it.

Masks, isolation, testing, tracing, reduced mixing, compassion, statistics.

Then, when vaccines arrived, we vaccinated most people here (apart from kids now under 13).

And when that was mostly done, we 'let it rip' in mid 2021.

Then came the second bump.

The second bump wasn't slowed by physical measures.

It was made less harmful by widespread recent vaccination.

But Covid vaccines only *reduce* risk.

They don't eliminate it...

They don't prevent infection.
They don't prevent transmission.
They don't prevent illness.
They don't prevent long term effects.
They don't prevent death.

They reduce the chances of them.

(are the vaccines good and useful and have I received every covid vaccination available to me? Yes.
Have they ended the pandemic? Read on.)

And the second bump reflected that.
A smaller proportion of people infected were obviously harmed.... but a much greater number of people were infected.

And so sadly the second bump was more impactful in terms of absence and disability and death than the first, even though the deaths came more slowly.

Now, why was this let it rip policy enforced?

Because of a hopeful guess.

The hopeful guess that covid would 'just go away' with a little help from the vaccines.

That our bodies would learn to stop catching it, or stop transmitting it, or stop being harmed by it, or something.

There's no denying that the landscape is different with vaccines in the mix, but that hopeful guess didn't play out the way it was hoped.

During the second bump, it started to become apparent that there was more than one effect going on.

Catching Covid after vaccination *made your body better at resisting covid for a short period of time*, while *also still harming your body*.

And the question, which is still on the table, is: which effect is greater?

Because if catching Covid makes you more able to recognise and deal with Covid, but the damage done in the process affects your ability to repair and recover and fight other infections... then are you making yourself vulnerable to illness in new ways...

And during the second bump, which consisted of multiple waves of Covid, I and others watched this battle of the effects.

And I watched with concern.

Was the second bump going to lead to a third bump.

Were the repeat infections of the second bump going to lead to widespread lasting damage to people's bodily systems so that we would enter a third bump of elevated levels of illness, disability, and death?

In 2023, the jury was out, the evidence was unclear.

Looking back at the situation a year ago, as absence rates were improving, I cautiously considered the possibility that things might return to pre-pandemic normal.

It was hard to tell which effect was going to win out.

But our government here made sure that the scales were tipped on the side of the damage winning out.

Encouraging damage from infection in schools.
Encouraging damage from infection in hospitals.
Encouraging damage from infection in every corner of society.

And so my hopes faded.

And the damage of the infections in the second bump lead us to the third bump.

https://x.com/1goodtern/status/1850638766081523773?t=NFCNoQ5clBE78vXJql37dw&s=19

If you recognise how curves work, you'll have been able to see that the curve has been evident since the arrival of BA.2.86 in autumn 2023.

BA.2.86 was the game changer.

It gave birth to JN.1, and that gave birth to the KPs and MCs, and they've recombined to give us the XECs and the fast rising XEK.

And so we're into the third bump.

I think it would be fitting to cause it the Leonardi Bump, since @fitterhappierAJ was the one who bust a gut warning about it.

@fitterhappierAJ Not just warning about the short term effect of infections and repeat infections, but the implications of the accumulations of the short term effects, and how the accumulations become long term effects.

@fitterhappierAJ And so that's what I'm afraid of.

The third bump.

@fitterhappierAJ Not the effects of the initial exposure.

But the cumulative effects of the damage.

We tried to warn you.

https://x.com/1goodtern/status/1260892782979420160?t=9yIZ4dDW7mmTaroWh-B3vA&s=19

The 'years later' phase, that's the fourth bump.

And I'm afraid of that too.

https://x.com/1goodtern/status/1260892784611012608?t=9yIZ4dDW7mmTaroWh-B3vA&s=19

Darn typos...
It would be fitting to *call* it.

https://x.com/1goodtern/status/1851177347526934890?t=9yIZ4dDW7mmTaroWh-B3vA&s=19

Oh yes... maybe I should mention one specific problem that was made widespread with BA.2.86... and why it was significant in the rise of the third bump...

BA.2.86 and its spawn thrive in the *gut mucosa*, the mucous membranes of the digestive system.

And they can persist there more easily.

Almost everything that goes into you goes in through your lungs or your gut.

The lungs had already been conquered.
But that just reduced your ability to take in oxygen.

Although for some people it reduced their ability to take in oxygen so much that they died.

And Covid had always affected *some people's* guts.

But BA.2.86 and friends made that conquest widespread.

And every nutrient you will ever take in...

... comes through your gut.