eugyppius

Corona will still be infecting millions of people long after all of us are dead. Every year there will be many Corona deaths, as from influenza. The pandemic is over, and has been since May 2020. The virus is endemic & has settled into a typical coronavirus seasonality.

H1N1 descendants of the virus that caused the 1918 pandemic returned in subsequent years, but the press did not talk about an ongoing ‚pandemic‘ or continued mitigation beyond the first waves.

No amount of vaccines, masks, tests or social distancing will put an end to Corona, and indeed our greatest problem has long ceased to be ending the virus. It is now about ending the useless measures, which will never achieve the goals of their proponents.

"It is now about ending the useless measures, which will never achieve the goals of their proponents." I disagree. The "useless measures" ARE the goals of their proponents. If corona is eternal, they can continue this forever.

Yes, good point. I would say, there are a few tiers of proponents. A lot of ordinary people, particularly older retirees, support them because they‘re afraid. But other people have different goals.

Agreed. Scared elderly people, they can see that the authorities are incompetent (eg vaccine production; flipflops on masks, travel bans, border closings...) but that makes them even more fearful, and willing to support unlimited repressive measures.

One of the paradoxes of this thing is that the very incompetence of the authorities has actually empowered them. The worse things go, the more frightened people get, and the more they defer to "authorities".