'We're in for a bad and rocky ride:' Ex-WHO doctor who helped eradicate smallpox predicts COVID-19 t

[LiberalArkie]

'We're in for a bad and rocky ride:' Ex-WHO doctor who helped eradicate smallpox predicts COVID-19 turmoil for years

People will need a small yellow card at airports to show immunization against the COVID-19 virus. Schools, restaurants and sports stadiums will be equipped with quick, inexpensive testing stations for students and customers.

The world will be fighting coronavirus the next three to four years as virus hot spots skip from nation to nation and the pandemic's toll will linger for decades, said Dr. Larry Brilliant, a California epidemiologist who was part of a World Health Organization team in the 1970s that helped eradicate smallpox.

But it's "not all doom and gloom" with effective vaccines likely to emerge from dozens of candidates worldwide and effective treatments, including convalescent plasma and monoclonal antibodies, to help people recover more quickly, Brilliant said.

"We will still be chasing the virus four years from now. But it won’t be like (today)," Brilliant told the USA TODAY Editorial Board on Monday afternoon. "It will be like the smallpox eradication program. The polio eradication program. Having yellow fever in some countries and not in others."

Snip

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/08/03/covid-19-us-who-doctor-larry-brilliant/5574854002/

[Laelth]

1. Or, it could be worse.

A little card saying “I don’t have COVID-19” won’t do anyone any good if it turns out that we are ALL going to get this highly-contagious disease sooner or later and if it turns out that COVID-19 NEVER goes away.

What are the millions of infected people going to do if it turns out that COVID-19 is an incurable, life-long illness? We know very little, at this point, but there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence out there suggesting that people never “fully recover” from COVID-19 and that, once contracted, the body will never fully eliminate the virus entirely.

Now what?



-Laelth

[Solomon]

4. That's what's pissing me off about the coverage of the virus. They aren't telling us it may cause

permanent illness. Really pisses me off. The one person I know who supposedly recovered (others I know who got it died) keeps saying she has a relapse every time after she supposedly recovers. She caught it early March and here it is August and she's still fucked up from it.

Maybe people would wear masks if they knew you can't get rid of it.

[Laelth]

6. Yep.

I know a couple of people like that. They got it early, and seemed to get better, but then relapsed and just can’t shake it.

This is a NASTY bug.

-Laelth

[SheltieLover]

7. This!👆

[Newest Reality]

2. I would say...

That view may have been overly optimistic.

[secondwind]

3. I worry about the grandchildren, what their future will be like.

😩

[LiberalArkie]

9. I am 72 and consider that I am lucky considering how medical science was when I was a kid

Being in grade school and everyone lines up in the cafeteria for shots. The school nurse would stick the big huge syringe in a bottle and fill it up with whatever was being dosed out. She would go down the line and stick out arm and push some in and go to the next kid and do the same. When the syringe went dry she would fill it up again and continue.

That is why my doctor told me they don't check boomers for one of the hepatitis versions. It is generally assumes that we picked it up in grade school. They did not know about blood born diseases.

I never knew I had a mitral valve problem since ultrasounds had not been invented yep. I never knew I had Aspergers as it was not diagnosed yet, the kid was just crazy.

Since I was able to survive that, and the kids today will not have to as there are remedies for most things now, what is a little virus. Think back how dirty the city water was, how bad the aid was, all the chemicals just floating around, how as kids we used to run and play behind the mosquito truck fogging the areas with the DDT spray.

The kids will be ok.

[shanti]

11. I can still smell

those DDT trucks. Nasty!

[ananda]

5. That was interesting.

..

[procon]

8. And who knows when the next incurable super virus

will attack? The COVID-19 virus won't be the last deadly disease that pops up suddenly and rapidly spreads around the globe with no known cure.

Too many factors contribute to the spawning of these new diseases. From the conditions of unchecked climate change, to over population, lack of universal healthcare, poor nutrition, poverty, ignorance, crop failures, poor farming practices, waste management, lack of sanitation, birth control, diminishing water supplies, mass human migration, overcrowded slums, wars and lawlessness... It will only continue to get worse.

[crickets]

10. The reality will likely fall somewhere between these predictions

and everyone's worst fears. It's going to take far longer than it should, that's for sure.

[Initech]

12. My biggest fear is anti-vaccination crusaders.

Because of them this virus might never go completely away and we won't be able to eradicate it the way that we eradicated smallpox and polio. I feel when (if) the vaccine is finally here, if they won't get vaccinated, we need to treat them like second class citizens.