Grant: Vaccines will never eliminate COVID, so it's time to pivot our response (opens in new tab)

What I expect though, constant ramping up/down of traffic light 'danger' codes for years, and using the pandemic as a means to force more surveillance onto us (through vaccination QR codes, mandatory tests, automated contact tracing etc).

A bit like in the years after 9/11 when the 'terrorism' topic on the news was constant vague unspecific warnings and colour codes. Even now, still, 20 years later they are still adding more surveillance (the EU here is planning to ban un-backdoored E2E encryption) even though the courts themselves have confirmed it was illegal and didn't actually lead to major foiled terrorist plots. So all this surveillance was basically for nothing. Trillions wasted, so many liberties given up. I mean, 9/11 was terrible but it led to a push for safety at any price that is totally unachievable. A lot of the measures imposed were either theater or done for ulterior motives.

But in the mean time the whole surveillance industry has become so big that its continuation has become a goal of its own, it's 'too big to fail' now, too many people get their livelyhood from it, too much lobbying from the companies involved. Now they have the covid train to jump on as well.

Now, in contrast to what the article says, I have to say that we're not at the point yet where we can let everything slide. The Netherlands did that a month and a half ago and the autumn ramp-up totally caught them off-guard and things went real bad real fast. But I do agree with the article that eventually we'll just have to stop making a big deal about it and just let it become a normal illness.

Like the article says, severe illness is highly curtailed by the vaccines, and the upcoming medication will probably do the same. These effects will multiply to reduce the number of severe cases significantly and eventually we'll get to a point where we just don't have to worry about covid overwhelming the health system anymore and should be able to get on with our lives. We may need to increase the capacity of the health system somewhat though as even with these measures there will probably be seasonal peaks.

But I doubt that the powers that be will be willing to let us go back. They'll be worried they'll be blamed for another wave, there's the lobbying from the pharma and surveillance companies for more money... Politicians love introducing new things but they're not so good at getting rid of them when they're no longer needed. The same way that no politician wants to be seen to be 'soft on terrorism', it'll probably be the same with covid due to all the media attention it has received.

First is - 2 doses of vaccine is expected to bring good immunity against Delta variant - well, this is simply wrong - high viral load Delta needs at least 3 doses of vaccine for adequate immune response.

It is pointless to continue discussion when it is based on wrong understanding.

She also gets it wrong about younger generation vaccination. There is huge age based difference in immune response after 2 doses of vaccine - 2 doses of vaccine appears to be very effective against transmission in younger generation. Less transmission - less exposure to the deadly virus for the in risk generation - less deaths among them.

How is it that avoiding death and hospitalization has become the metric for need of vaccination? I do not think that people vaccinate children against measles to avoid going to the hospital - they vaccinate to avoid a nasty disease and vaccinating children against COVID-19 does exactly that.

She is also completely wrong about importance of early testing. Focusing on testing allows to predict high load on hospitals earlier and gives the government more time to react with preventive measures. Perhaps there should be not that high public focus on it but this does not reduce the importance of it.

There is another necessity for early testing - new drugs that are only effective when administered early so early diagnosis becomes even more important.

This is a defeatist view based on wrong understanding of the situation. It is saddening that many people in comments section do not see it through and tend to go along.