The Mu-variant
15 September 2021Almost a year ago was when it sunk in that the Covid-19 pandemic would run for at least another twelve months. Now that vaccines are here I had been able to get one with my life, but a potential spanner in the works is the μ-variant of Covid which looks like it could be vaccine-resistant. I already suspected that Covid-19 is going to go on for several more years, purely because vaccination rates outside of Europe are still very low, but now I think it may well be here to stay.
With the delta-variant the purpose of vaccination had already changed from preventing infection to keeping you alive and out of hospital, since the probability of vaccination stopping infection by the delta-variant has been as low as 40% in some studies. With the original variant that vaccines were designed for it is thought that herd immunity only required a coverage in the 60–70% range but with the delta-variant something north of 90% would be needed, which I doubt will be achieved without something drastic like mandatory vaccination. I support the latter although I very much doubt it will actually happen at the national level.
My working assumption is that getting exposed to Covid-19 is a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ and I suspect society as a whole is not going to make allowances for those who choose to go unprotected.