The collective hope is that the pandemic will shift soon to being just “endemic” to our lives — much as the normal flu season has become. With that in mind, we have two vaccinations to get this fall. The normal flu shot and then the latest COVID-19 booster shot. How many people will take advantage of both? Given the predilection to think “it is over,” I’m thinking the percentage of people who get the new COVID-19 booster will be way less than 50 percent, other than those over the age of 65.
A term I read recently is “twindemic,” meaning another surge in COVID-19 and then also a really bad flu season. With the symptoms sometimes being the same, treatment choices become more important. Hopefully we can avoid the above.
Meanwhile, as reported by the New York Times, “China, a powerful engine of global growth and a major market for European exports like cars, machinery and food, is facing its own set of problems. Beijing’s policy of continuing to freeze all activity during Covid-19 outbreaks has repeatedly paralyzed large swaths of the economy and added to worldwide supply chain disruptions. In the last few weeks alone, dozens of cities and more than 300 million people have been under full or partial lockdowns. Extreme heat and drought have hamstrung hydropower generation, forcing additional factory closings and rolling blackouts.”
Here in the USA we are still averaging 72,000 cases a day and 400 deaths. I don’t think I’d call the virus “whipped” just yet.
As I’ve said repeatedly and Dr. Fauci remarked just the other day, this COVID-19 virus has been throwing curve balls at us since the beginning. Given the worldwide spread of the virus, what will keep it from creating a new variant that has deadly consequences?
I don’t see anything preventing that! Dumb luck maybe?
