[algorias]

There is no ongoing pandemic. There is now an endemic virus that's part of the regular rotation of pathogens that cause colds and flu, and covid doesn't seem particularly more dangerous than the rest (NB: influenza can be very nasty too! I'm not minimizing the harm of covid).

The pandemic was a unique situation because the entire world population was immuno-naive to covid. This is no longer the case; we all get exposed dozens of times per year and keep our natural immunity up.

[ridiskdkfjsl]

the distinction between pandemic and endemic is political and typically related to “we don’t care to contain it”. It’s not related to immunity levels. The interesting thing is that it used to be citizens of poorer countries who would be fodder, now it’s also the richer ones which I think says something about the state of those countries and progress in general

[LorenPechtel]

I wouldn't say so much that we don't care to contain it, but that pandemic means it's sweeping over a population, endemic means it's simply always present in the population without major swings in prevalence. Impossible to contain because it's already everywhere.

[LorenPechtel]

Covid causes a lot more deaths and a lot more damage than the flu. The flu is simply unpleasant for the vast majority of those who are otherwise reasonably healthy. Covid is still doing lasting damage to such people.

[immibis]

The difference between a pandemic and an endemic is that we don't want to stop an endemic. The virus is the same; the effects are the same but more averaged out with fewer peaks and troughs; they are just as bad.

[mlyle]

> is that we don't want to stop an endemic.

In my opinion, there's no significant levers left to push to affect infection rates much.

Of course, we should be doing everything reasonable we can to tamp down COVID (and the flu). But short of permanent quarantine or forcing anti-vaxxers to get vaccinated, I'm not sure what there's left to do.

(It would be nice if we could socially normalize and encourage wearing a mask when one feels slightly sick, too).

[wahnfrieden]

Are you saying influenza and common cold also break down the blood brain barrier? Because that is what the new news is that the OP is about.

[algorias]

No, I'm saying that they also have a comparable rate of post-viral syndrome, and a comparable rate of severe cases. It is not clear at all at this point if covid will be able to do this much damage to the next generation (whose first exposure was as babies). Maybe this blood brain barrier thing is something that all viruses do if the immune system doesn't respond appropriately. I genuinely don't know.