There has been a great deal of talk about herd immunity. Some of the anti-VAX folks say that we should just all get exposed and then there will be no problem. I think that is what some say. Now there are problems here.
First, and this is serious, is the issue of multi-organ infection. For example, we are seeing, especially amongst young males, myocarditis. This is an infection of the heart muscles. Acute infections result in lots of natural killer cells, NK, and inflammation. Chronic infection results in replacement of the killed heart muscle cells with fibroblasts, creating fibrin patches like a heart attack. Namely the infection with COVID becomes a diffuse heart attack, slowly, and unknowingly debilitating your heart. We have seen cases amongst basketball players where they just drop in the court while playing. This post infection immune reaction can also affect the liver, kidney, brain. Slow but debilitating.
Second, one must remember that the vaccine stops the infection from proliferating and causing the above. However it does not prevent the infection. In fact one can be vaccinated, not get sick but be a "mini carrier". A Typhoid Mary is you will. That means those not vaccinated subject themselves to infection. Thus there is no herd immunity, only mitigation for those vaccinated. Cute little virus.
Third, we are starting to see mutations. The classic flu mutates on an annual basis and the annual flu shot addresses the best guess approach. If COVID continues to mutate then we expect that we may very well have to establish a similar annual approach. This is not unusual but expected. The problem, of course, is that we may not have a simple spike protein to attack it with. Also we need an international monitoring system that works, not like the last bout with the grossly incompetent CDC and WHO.
This is not the beginning of the end. It is the beginning of a new approach to highly infectious diseases. We need global monitoring, Government actions, rapid testing, and vaccine production that is efficient and effective. It is the cost of being a global society. Also we may very well be facing a second pandemic of debilitating sequellae as noted above.
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