2 COVID Vaccines Approved, End to Pandemic in Sight??

[Merlin]

At a certain point they have to stop the big scare and have to call the disease endemic as so many cases are not equal number of deaths, so it becomes the same as regular flu, which, by the way, still causes lots of deaths each year but since it cannot be exploited politically and economically with fear, unlike covid 19, no one is worried about it and no one goes crazy stocking up on toilet paper just because the regular flu is in season.

The problem is, this is far worse than the flu. People have been dealing with the various human influenza viruses that come around each year for hundreds (thousands?) of years. Our bodies are mostly able to deal with it on our own. Yes, in severe cases some people do die from the flu as well, but typically these people were already immunocompromised in some way to begin with. That said, far fewer people who catch the flu die from it, and most of those who recover from the flu generally don't have to worry about lasting complications beyond Pneumonia, inflammation, and secondary infections. Those can be treated and will go away quickly, and major complications are pretty rare.

Our bodies are not used to defending against Covid, so our ability to properly defend against it is less guaranteed. A lot more people will develop severe cases than would those with influenza. In addition to influenza's complications, people who recover from even mild to moderate cases of Covid can still end up with lasting issues that might not be noticed for a while. Things like cardiac, respiratory, or kidney damage; nervous system damage, inflammation of the brain and heart, blood clots, etc.

The wife of one of my friends is a nurse who caught Covid a couple of months ago. She had a moderate case and recovered, but is still dealing with diminished respiratory capacity. One of my former coworkers got Covid back in late spring or early summer and thought it was no big deal... basically no worse than the flu. He recovered without any issues, but then ended up having a stroke due to a blood clot a few weeks later.

So, I'm taking this whole thing a bit more seriously since I've seen what it can do. I'm in a higher risk bracket to start with, so I'm not taking any chances. Especially considering I have a 5-year-old depending on me.