Giving Up on Containment: Why the new propaganda is from pandemic to “endemic”
You may be seeing a refrain in a lot of comment threads on social media, especially conversations populated by more “conservative” commenters, that goes something like this:
“COVID isn’t going anywhere, so we might as well learn to live with it.”
A recent Wall Street Journal article is an example of this line of thinking, and it is become a more common perspective. Back in July 2020, Shaman and Galanti explored the possibility of COVID becoming endemic in an article published in Science. They suggest that, as is the case with other endemic viruses and coronaviruses, whether COVID will become endemic or not depends on several different factors, namely:
- Reinfection rates and length of post-infection or post vaccine immunity
- Vaccine availability and efficacy
- Social, immune system, and innate factors preventing transmission
Figure from Shaman and Galanti 2020
From this study, and others, it becomes clear that the jump to endemism of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a complex question, and there is much that is still unknown. As with all things epidemiological, the question awaits much more data, especially on vaccine efficacy and how high the rate of reinfection might be, and over what time scale.
Given this murky picture and the incredible unknowns that are still at play, it is utterly absurd in the extreme to surrender and give up on containment. Until we know more, all necessary public health precautions need to continue to be implemented. The blasé attitude with which many pandemic-fatigued or ignorant people seem ready to chuck public health precautions, open schools, open everything back up, is astonishing. The idea that “corona is here to stay, so we might as well get used to it and learn to live with it” is pernicious propaganda at this point, not supported by science.
Of course, it’s clear why this “shrug and I guess I’ll take the risk, stop living in fear, nothing to be done” attitude is so appealing is because it means our long national nightmare of lockdowns, remote school, closed restaurants, masks, and all of the other public health measures would be over. This is a seductive and alluring possibility. If the virus “isn’t going anywhere,” there’s certainly no point in even trying for containment anymore. This seems especially appealing on economic grounds, and probably is especially appealing to people who refuse to admit that the pandemic is a serious health threat in the first place.
It should be reiterated, however, that
- “Herd immunity” is a long, long way off, even with the vaccines. The cost of herd immunity without the vaccines is on the order of at least 1.5 million fatalities and untold numbers of other long term health effects. Vaccination rates have been abysmally low, and the roll out has been repeatedly botched.
- If SARS-CoV-2 ends up being truly endemic, this is most definitely NOT a good thing, in the least. The people who find it reassuring to suggest that the virus is “here to stay” are quite literally promoting a horror story of repeated large scale impacts likely to exceed any other public health situation in human history.
- It has been shown conclusively that SARS-CoV-2 can be effectively contained with effective contact tracing, quarantine, reasonable public health precautions, and, probably, an effective vaccination program.
It is far too early in the game to just shrug and give up. It’s admittedly been a challenging year. The weariness from the restrictions that have been in place to reduce spread is understandable. However, the attitude that “COVID is here to stay, so we might as well just go about our lives as normal” is not informed by science, not supported by any known data regarding reinfection rates, vaccine efficacy, or length of immunity, and involves a huge, unacceptable risk to many millions of people. It constitutes extremely dangerous “common sense” that can only be arising from lack of knowledge of the science, or a cynical desire to manipulate that lack of knowledge.
