Happy New Year

[Phoenixmgs]

Depends where you live, and how you define better or worse.

Even if Covid goes, there's a shit tonne of issues to deal with. On the other hand, there's various positive trends that have occurred over the last decade as well, so pick your poison I guess.

Pretty much this. Covid is basically pandemic-lite, there's so many other far more pressing issues that will cause much much worse years than covid ever could. The question is when these issues start having major negative effects.

Well seeing how that new strain of Covid is confirmed in Colorado, and WHO says the world hasn't even hit the bad phase of the pandemic yet, I'm predicting we in the states and the world at large have a lot more of the same for the next few years.

The covid new strain is kinda meaningless, it's not the 1st new strain of it. And, it was 1st discovered way back in September to so it's been in the US for awhile already. I don't know why they made such big news over this a few weeks back or whatever and tried containing it when it was discovered over 2 months back. The bad part of the pandemic is long gone as the infection fatality rate keeps dropping over time, we have treatments that help, we have a vaccine that works. What's this "bad" phase supposed to be? Restrictions in the US will basically be completely gone right around summer time. I'm guessing really big indoor gatherings like conventions will be skittish about coming back but just about everything else will be like normal. This isn't going to take years to go away, we're at the endgame. Even if we didn't have the vaccine, half of America has already got infected this year (as it's estimated that the real infection rate is 8x the official number) so we'd reach herd immunity even without the vaccine over the next year.

Its entirely possible that it will end up like the flu and just be a yearly thing that we all get to deal with since too many people didn't take this shit seriously.

It's extremely unlikely that this will end up like the flu, the flu is very unique while covid is not.

I think the pandemic will mostly be remembered for how quickly the scientific community could develop vaccines. The pandemic itself was(or is) nowhere near as bad as the Spanish Flu was. The quick vaccine turnaround is probably what the the world at large will become more reliant on with climate change and more novel viruses as a result of humanity encroaching on wild nature.

I sincerely hope the previous year was a wake-up call that we should be more considerate of earth's resources and start to seriously do something about animal abuse and the way we treat animals. And also seriously raise the issue of overpopulation and it's devastating effects. Before it is, indeed, too late.

I got tired of all the "2020 is the worst" memes like in March. This is the pandemic-lite, if we got like an actual serious pandemic that had just a 1% fatality rate (or worse), it would so much worse than covid. Also, the Spanish Flu preyed on the youth, which is way worse than covid preying on the elderly. Outside of how fast it spread, every single property of covid feels like it's only here slap us on the wrist and try to teach us something that we don't seem to be learning. It's like people have no idea that covid is like a pandemic tutorial, it ain't even like level 1.

Yeah, there's so many other pressing issues that will lead to way worse outcomes than covid ever could. Sadly, this will not come close to the worst year in most of our lifetimes. I don't have much faith in humanity doing much to "fix" these things and it's probably too late to do much anyway.

 

[Worgen]

It's extremely unlikely that this will end up like the flu, the flu is very unique while covid is not.

When I said 'like the flu' I didn't mean in structure or anything, I meant that it would mutate yearly and we would have a new strain that we don't have immunities for pretty much every year. I mean its unlikely but possible.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

When I said 'like the flu' I didn't mean in structure or anything, I meant that it would mutate yearly and we would have a new strain that we don't have immunities for pretty much every year. I mean its unlikely but possible.

I meant the flu is very unique in how it literally can't make copies of itself without making "errors". Even when you have the flu, you have thousands of different variants of it in you. Covid is not like that.

 

[stroopwafel]

I got tired of all the "2020 is the worst" memes like in March. This is the pandemic-lite, if we got like an actual serious pandemic that had just a 1% fatality rate (or worse), it would so much worse than covid. Also, the Spanish Flu preyed on the youth, which is way worse than covid preying on the elderly. Outside of how fast it spread, every single property of covid feels like it's only here slap us on the wrist and try to teach us something that we don't seem to be learning. It's like people have no idea that covid is like a pandemic tutorial, it ain't even like level 1.

Yeah, there's so many other pressing issues that will lead to way worse outcomes than covid ever could. Sadly, this will not come close to the worst year in most of our lifetimes. I don't have much faith in humanity doing much to "fix" these things and it's probably too late to do much anyway.

Yep, in particular those comparing it to WW2 made me cringe. Yep, having to stay at home with a bucket of icecream watching netflix sure does compare to the prosecution of the jews.

I think the thing with covid is that it's just bad enough that some people, espescially those of old age and/or with preexisting conditions, can get really sick from it but not bad enough that it can't be absorbed by the healthcare system. If it was maybe 5% of people who got really sick from it then healthcare would no longer be able to provide. Even higher numbers and people will notice how disease can actually destroy a society. Not a recession or economic problems but actual collapse. The general 'death anxiety' with which society has pushed death to the fringes of hospitals and out of sight will no longer suffice. It will linger everywhere.

Western societies are old and fat which is why covid is a risk, but you never know what other viruses might be introduced into the population. With the way humanity exploits and destroys nature and widlfife and just keeps ballooning in size it's only a matter of time. Look how easily things are upended with a relatively benign virus like covid for which hundreds of thousands of infections are needed before hospitals notice something. Next time we might not be so lucky. It's a stark reminder that we really aren't as important as we think we are.