Initially there were hopes that it would be eradicated.
But yes, it's been posited for some time that we're going to need to chase Covid, continually chase it through gene sequencing and continually adapt our vaccines and boosters. But it's not a little thing. Covid isn't influenza. Initially, one of the mistakes we made all over the world was to attack Covid as if it spread like influenza...via mostly symptomatic people (2/3 of influenza cases is spread via symptomatic patients)...from large droplets and fomites (virus settling on surfaces).
But we know with Covid we have more asymptotic spread than we do with influenza, studies are still being done to try and determine how much. And....Covid has much more of an "airborne" quality to it's spread than influenza does. With Covid, and asymptomatic person literally breathing in a room can infect others in that same room over time. That doesn't happen with influenza.
The biggest issue many scientists see going forward is how we battle Influenza and Covid at the same time. Remember, we have very, very little flu this year...all over the world. We've all been avoiding each other and/or wearing masks when we're together. This really shows how contagious Covid is....because even with all of the mitigation, all over the world, people are still contracting Covid. Now we're going to try and get back to some sense of a 2019 existence with both Covid and Influenza circulating at the same time.
If we have periods of time where hospitals are dealing with very sick Covid and Influenza patients....year in and year out, we're going to have issues with very overloaded hospital systems. Even with vaccines and therapeutics.
I am actually hopeful in the short term that we can have a much more normal existence, especially when compared to 2020. But Covid is really a game changer, for the whole planet.
