What If the Coronavirus Pandemic Never Ends?
We have lived with the coronavirus pandemic for half a year by now, and there are no signs indicating that it will end any time soon. In fact, the pandemic is currently resurging all over the world, leading to the introduction (or reintroduction) of harsh restrictions in many countries. Hopes that it will ‘just end’ and go away by itself, like the Spanish Flu did a century ago, may be overly optimistic, and we are still waiting anxiously for a vaccine that works. It may well be that we will end the pandemic within a year or less with a combination of anti-spread measures and vaccines, but it is also possible that we will never get rid of the virus — at least in the foreseeable future — and will have to learn to live with it.
We have seen that surviving infection is no guarantee against contracting COVID-19 a second time. Immunity may only last a handful of months, and the less seriously you were hit by the virus, the shorter your immunity will last. We can not expect vaccines to provide immunity any longer than that (maybe even less), so unless you get a shot every six months, you can’t count on being safe — and this safety even assumes that the coronavirus doesn’t mutate. Flu shots don’t provide absolute immunity exactly because viruses are apt to mutate, and COVID-19 has already mutated into several different strains — even some that transmit more easily. Though the coronavirus seems to mutate fairly slowly, this could change.
There are several examples of viruses that we have never succeeded in eradicating because of constant mutation, with Influenza A and B, the common cold, and HIV being prime cases. If COVID-19 keeps mutating, it might also be something we will have to learn to live (or die) with. Even if it doesn’t mutate more rapidly than we can develop vaccines, it might still resurge regularly from small pockets where it has survived, once strict measures are lifted — perhaps through a few ‘super-spreaders’ who carry the disease without showing clear signs of infection.
If the coronavirus stays with us, this could lead to profound and lasting changes in our everyday life and lifestyles in general. Wearing facemasks every time you leave home may become a permanent fixture, and people who are able to may avoid mass transport like buses, trains, ferries and planes because of the higher risk of infection. Greeting people may change, with an end to hugs, cheek-kissing and handshakes. Bowing from a safe distance may become the new normal. Business meetings over lunch or dinner may become a thing of the past due to the higher risk of infection. People who are dating may require a fresh, negative corona test from their potential partners, and close-contact services like massage and prostitution may grind to a halt except for high-end establishments where workers and their clients can afford being regularly tested. We can hope for rapid tests that show results within minutes rather than days, but lacking that, physical social interaction with strangers may become awkward, frowned on or even entirely dispensed with.
Communities that have become entirely free of the virus — villages, towns or even nations — may choose to enforce strict quarantine of all visitors, but even so, the virus may be carried there by wildlife that infects pets or livestock, which in turn infect people. We can’t expect to vaccinate all wildlife, can we?
It may of course be that we eventually lift most or all restrictions and just accept that a lot of people will die. Even if we don’t find vaccines or efficient treatments against COVID-19, we have already found drugs that reduce the likelihood of dying, and this will also reduce the fear of dying. At any rate, it will mostly be old and weak people who die, so the coronavirus may be good for our societies in the long run — and it will certainly boost the funeral industry. We accept that more than a million people worldwide are killed yearly in car accidents, not to mention millions more dying from air pollution, to which cars are a major contributor. We don’t talk about banning cars for that reason — so why should we worry more about a few million people dying yearly from the coronavirus? If life becomes easier for most of us if a few more people die (other people, naturally), why should we worry? We want to be able use our cars every day even though cars kill, so why shouldn’t we keep on flying on holiday three times a year and partying every weekend, even if that means the coronavirus will kill a few more? Death is a part of life, after all. Maybe it will even end all this talk about overpopulation.
