Covid is clearly far more infectious than the flu. And, with a death toll of over 750,000 in the United States and over 5 million worldwide, it is clearly far more deadly.
But you’ve probably noticed medical pundits all over the media lately drawing all kinds of comparisons between Covid and the flu. Their apparent consensus is that, just like the flu, Covid will become a seasonal virus, which will require annual Covid vaccine shots to treat.
This headline from Monday’s edition of NBC News spoke volumes:
- Public Health Officials Say COVID-19 Is Likely Here to Stay, Herd Immunity Unattainable: the battle against COVID-19 shifts from crushing the virus, to living with the virus
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, has been a leading voice in this respect. On the August 26 edition of New Day, for example, Gupta said that Covid is moving from the pandemic to endemic stage. He then claimed that we are still living with variants from the endemic stage of the flu pandemic of 1918. He clearly hoped to allay fears and assure the public that living with Covid will be no big deal.
But Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, left me bemused when he said, on Monday’s edition of OutFront on CNN, that living with Covid, the way we live with the flu, came to him like an epiphany about a month ago.
Because, with all due respect to Gupta and Wachter, I began writing about learning to live with Covid, the way we live with the flu, over a year ago in “Coronavirus: The Worldwide Lockdown,” March 14, 2020. Among other things, I diagnosed that:
Once the novelty of social distancing and self-isolation wears off, mental depression might be competing with economic depression to become the leading cause of death among Westerners. … Again, with apologies to FDR, what we have to fear is fear itself triggering a global depression. … When juxtaposed to the seasonal flu, no closure, quarantine, or state of emergency seems warranted. …
Just imagine the panic if we reacted to every case of the flu with as much alarm as we’re reacting to every case of this virus — complete with the media fetishistically tolling bells for every death.
Even more on point, I followed up earlier this year in “‘Covid-19 Will Be Like Seasonal Flu.’ No Sh!t,” February 17, 2021 as follows:
___________
The Economist readily admits that the economic toll is incalculable. Still it estimates the loss to date at $10 trillion worldwide. …
Concomitant with all that, of course, is the pandemic of lockdown side effects ranging from obesity and domestic violence to stress/depression and even suicide. And there’s no end in sight.
I am no scientist. But I did not have to be to make a connection between Covid-19 and the flu. I need only refer you to my commentary titled “Covid-20 Is Coming. What Happens Then…?” April 23, 2020.
Which clearly raises the question I posed back then – as I admonished against the worldwide rush to impose lockdown measures:
- If Covid-19 becomes seasonal, just like the flu, are we going to react every time the way we are this season, namely with lockdown restrictions that reduce even bustling cities to ghost towns…?
I refer you to the four-point plan I laid out in “Medics Complain about Lack of Supplies. Trump Passes the Buck…Again,” March 20, 2020. Because experts are now prescribing those very points as the best way to live with Covid-19. But, apropos of the new normal, prepare to get an annual Covid shot along with your flu shot.
In other words, we’d be well-advised to go back to living like it’s 2019; well, except for a pandemic fetish for wearing masks and a pandemic OCD for washing hands.
________
See…? Enough said?
Related commentaries:
living with Covid…