Thread by @SGriffin_Lab

@RajeevJayadevan @CoronaHeadsUp @gwladwr @red_loeb @PJeffcock Rajeev. SARS2 waves are still driven almost entirely by virus evolution with very little influence from extraneous factors. Hence, it remains unpredictable, not cyclical.
The dynamics between viral variation and immunity dictate the scale of epidemic waves as well as severity.

@RajeevJayadevan @CoronaHeadsUp @gwladwr @red_loeb @PJeffcock Yes, the individual risk of severe acute COVID has been dramatically reduced by vaccines, but this scales by prevalence at population level. E.g. ~12-13K certificated deaths in the UK during 2024, ~60% as underlying.
The other issue is morbidity. #LongCovid & latent sequelae.

@RajeevJayadevan @CoronaHeadsUp @gwladwr @red_loeb @PJeffcock Govt guidance focuses very much on the individual risk, and it's understandable that individual clinicians may not appreciate the population impact.
However, as we r seeing yet again in SE Asia, when balance favours the virus, there is no doubting the additional health burden.

@RajeevJayadevan @CoronaHeadsUp @gwladwr @red_loeb @PJeffcock Little additional provision now exists to deal with this, it ought to be managed by vax and population level, multi layered mitigations, which also safeguard vs other diseases and pollution.
We managed these poorly in 2019, so reverting to type without learning is ridiculous.

@RajeevJayadevan @CoronaHeadsUp @gwladwr @red_loeb @PJeffcock I stress that this needs to come from the top down, as we are told relentlessly by @WHO, vax means many of us can, as you say, operate essentially normally in many ways. But, every infection is a roll of the dice, and #LongCovid continues to grow despite "mild" initial infection.

@RajeevJayadevan @CoronaHeadsUp @gwladwr @red_loeb @PJeffcock @WHO It is also essential to remember that this is a privilege afforded to us by unprecedented success of the COVID vaccines, which some now either take for granted or, bizarrely, attack via disinformation...aka US Health and Human Services since January.

@RajeevJayadevan @CoronaHeadsUp @gwladwr @red_loeb @PJeffcock @WHO But, there remains a large number of people unable to mount a vaccine response, who remain essentially stuck in 2020 as we all "get on with it"
They are marooned by the lack of societal mitigations, the politicised attitudes to masks, vax, etc, and farcical IPC ignoring aerosols.

@RajeevJayadevan @CoronaHeadsUp @gwladwr @red_loeb @PJeffcock @WHO Access to therapeutics has diminished dramatically, same for testing, and the lackadaisical attitudes of the "Just a cold" crew make it impossible for these folks to make risk assessments in every day life.
They, and their families/carers have been forgotten, this is a travesty.

@RajeevJayadevan @CoronaHeadsUp @gwladwr @red_loeb @PJeffcock @WHO Until we realise that CoV pandemics appear different to previous influenza's, that chronic disease is under recognised and impacts many more people than Govts will accept, and that viruses are held in check by immunity rather than "becoming milder" (see measles!), this continues.

@RajeevJayadevan @CoronaHeadsUp @gwladwr @red_loeb @PJeffcock @WHO We mustn't forget @cv_cev, that SARS2 evolves incredibly quickly, and causes complex pathology.
It may well be that your personal experience is absolutely what you described during the interview, but we all need to take a step back and do something about the big picture.

@RajeevJayadevan @CoronaHeadsUp @gwladwr @red_loeb @PJeffcock @WHO @cv_cev Apologies for the rant, but if we don't sort this out then the COVID pandemic will continue to afflict this planet, and we will be in a sorry state to deal with whatever comes next...#H5N1