Endemic=ALWAYS a part of our lives

It was always going to become endemic, and scientists said that from the very beginning. With as fast as it spread around the globe and the millions that it infected, and now the number of cross-species infections, SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay. The goal in the beginning, before we had vaccines, was to reduce spread by reducing contact and thereby save lives. The measures that were put into place were based on proven practices since time began - limited time spent in the presence of those who are sick. Since this virus has a long asymptomatic incubation period during which individuals are infectious, there was no way to know who was sick and who wasn't at first which meant uncontrolled spread unless everyone stayed home.

Once vaccines were created, tested, and rolled out, the next goal became to get as many vaccinated as possible, in order of highest risk to lowest, so as to reduce spread and severe symptoms resulting in hospitalization and death.

Now that the vaccines are out, and data continues to be collected on immunity and infections, it's clear that those who are unvaccinated are at highest risk of severe symptoms resulting in hospitalization and death. Those who have been infected naturally have some protection, but not nearly as much as those who have been vaccinated. The vaccines are not perfect, some work better than others, and all seem to need a booster to improve waning immunity over time, just like most of our other vaccines - nothing unexpected there.

The next step is the creation and implementation of effective drug therapies that can reduce the severity of symptoms and chances of death in those who become infected, which at some point most everyone will just like the flu. This will hopefully allow those who haven't been vaccinated, or in whom immunization is limited or complicating health factors are present, to be saved rather than going on ventilators.

What's unfortunate in all of this is that we have a higher percentage of unvaccinated people than we should. Yes, there will always be those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, and they deserve our compassion and utmost care in taking precautions to prevent infecting them; however, those who have willfully refused to get vaccinated simply because they don't trust "Big Pharma" or "Big Brother" and blatantly ignore the cold hard data (not the bullshit on YouTube, social media, or FOX news) staring them in the face will continue to be reservoirs of infection so that this keeps spreading, thus providing the opportunity for it to mutate into something far worse. We've been damn lucky that it doesn't impact kids or healthy adults as much as the 1918 flu did, but at some point either this (particularly with the diversity of animal species its infecting) or some other virus will. Hopefully, by then, our leaders will have pulled their heads out of their asses, figured out how to better communicate with the public, how to improve our supply chains, local manufacturing (hello 3D printing), healthcare infrastructure, and stockpiles of emergency supplies so we don't go through such a shitshow next time (like telling people not to wear masks, not because they weren't effective, but because they didn't want the public to make a run like they did with toilet paper on the miniscule supplies available and needed for healthcare workers). That's where the focus needs to be - on proactively working out these logistical problems for the next time.