ozimoron

What about your troll comment, it's "basic" microbiology. You are just using weasel words to claim you qualified your statement when you didn't. In fact, scientists expect it may never go away just like the flu. https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/covid-will-likely-shift-from-pandemic-to-endemic

It's depressing that the virus naysayers tend not to do even a modicum of research before spouting lies all over the net. It's almost as if they disdain science.

Wrong. "Delta is believed to be more than twice as contagious as previous variants, and studies have shown that it may be more likely than the original virus to put infected people in the hospital." https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/5-things-to-know-delta-variant-covid This large national study found a higher hospital admission or emergency care attendance risk for patients with COVID-19 infected with the delta variant compared with the alpha variant. Results suggest that outbreaks of the delta variant in unvaccinated populations might lead to a greater burden on health-care services than the alpha variant. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00475-8/fulltext Study suggests Delta more than doubles death risk https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/study-suggests-delta-more-than-doubles-death-risk Canadian research into COVID-19 variants found a person with Delta is almost twice as likely as someone with the Alpha variant to be hospitalised. They are one-and-a-half times as likely to die. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-21/doherty-institute-vaccine-covid-modelling-delta-outbreaks/100477998

It's a fallacy that it has to be less deadly if it's more contagious. There's no logic to that at all. It can be any permutation of the two metrics. It's definitely worth eradicating the flu but it evolves too fast and is too contagious. It is possible to eventually eradicate flu but it will take further advances in rapid vaccine development and high rates of vaccination. Covid-19 will be difficult to eradicate for the same reason. Possible but requires very high rates of vaccination. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2020/01/10/the-end-of-the-flu-can-we-immunize-the-world-against-a-seasonal-killer/?sh=6c42c812518e

All of these viruses were eradicated entirely due to human effort, not necessarily just through vaccines but social distancing and mask wearing etc. "Why did the original Sars epidemic come to end? Well, SARS-CoV-1 did not burn itself out. Rather, the outbreak was largely brought under control by simple public health measures. Testing people with symptoms (fever and respiratory problems), isolating and quarantining suspected cases, and restricting travel all had an effect. " https://theconversation.com/the-original-sars-virus-disappeared-heres-why-coronavirus-wont-do-the-same-138177 The chances that omicron is significantly milder than delta is "slim". https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03614-z

So I should ignore the risk from covid? is that your point? If not, what is it?

LONDON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer (PFE.N) and Moderna (MRNA.O) that use mRNA technology provide the biggest boost to antibody levels when given 10-12 weeks after the second dose, a British study published on Thursday has found. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/uk-study-finds-mrna-covid-19-vaccines-provide-biggest-booster-impact-2021-12-02/

There is no data as yet to suggest how mild omicron is or is not. Your use of loaded terms like misguided and futile show you to be an anti vaxxer. Like polio, smallpox, sars, mers and the spanish flu, eradication is far from futile. It must remain the goal. One certain way to eradicate it is for 100% compliance in vaccinations, masks and social distancing. There will be a newer vaccines developed which are more effective but those we have will buy us time and may even prevent the mutations you are asking about.

This is all the anti vaxxers are left with. They just keep clinging to that lie. It has been explained to them over and over again ad nauseum but they keep repeating the lie in true Goebbels fashion - if repeated enough times a lie becomes the truth.

No, evolution is a random process. Viruses which kill too fast may die out sooner like SARS and MERS but there's nothing to say that any mutation of a virus will be more or less deadly. See Darwin vs Lamarck.

who is everyone else? You are double vaccinated.

I expect the few to act responsibly just as the many are doing. Anyway, it's a moot point. The unvaccinated are having their freedom restricted.

I shouldn't have to do that when the simple solution is to make the unvaccinated stay at home. I'm the one doing the right thing by society. That's what this thread is all about.

I'm relatively old and, vaccinated or not, I have a lot to be concerned about if I get infected. The fewer people are unvaccinated the lower the chance that I will be infected.

A speculative hypothetical based on no data at all, let alone any published theory by any scientific expert. Aka FUD.

I note that it is just your opinion but.. https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_091521/

Millions will become dozens.

They don't have a society which remains divided by an unresolved civil war or a press which capitalizes on that premise.

I'm not suggesting that it's not a factor but given the widespread public health campaigns we need to look further. It is also a fact that education correlates with political preferences and so I think the education issue is more coincidental than causal. "Scholars have resorted to the solution aversion model to account for the growing political division around vaccination."

I would reject that there is any issue of education being the problem. There is ample evidence that the anti vax cult aka death cult is entirely politically driven. Many of them are vaccinated so the excuses about the vaccine being experimental and the unknown side effects don't wash. Those have mainly given way now to clinging to straws by repeating lies that the vaccines don't work and torturing the evidence to draw conclusions which aren't there. https://theconversation.com/the-anti-vax-movement-is-being-radicalized-by-far-right-political-extremism-166396 "Unlike prior vaccination hesitancy, the current anti-vax movement cannot be explained by a lack of information or illogical thinking, especially in light of the significant press coverage and public health initiatives over the last several months."

Again, this same misrepresentation! I endorse the above post completely.

When you spread widely refuted lies about the vaccines, people are entitled to presume that you are anti vax. It has been famously said that when you lie often enough it becomes the truth. The particular lie that vaccines don't prevent infection is pernicious and repeated often. What makes it even more egregious is that spreading virus misinformation is mostly done by the vaccinated and just for political purpose.

Your own reference belies your claim that vaccines ONLY prevent serious illness and death.

OK, they actually did say "probably" https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-12-02/did-omicron-coronavirus-variant-arise-in-patient-with-uncontrolled-hiv

That's not the case in SA where only 6% are vaccinated and there are known to be large numbers of untreated HIV infections. Probably would be a fair summation.