a reply to:
infolurker --- well, *that* was a cram course in human immune responses, very interesting. Thanks for posting the
link.
This MedCram class on YouTube did not refer to the worldwide problem of so-called Long COVID infections that can also follow an asymptomatic COVID-19
human infection ... those infections often span years and can involve a great degree of disability. Long COVID is thus a separate and complex issue
that has only recently begun to be clinically studied. Time will tell.
There's a book by Nicholas Christakis, MD, published in the USA in 2020, which includes important clues on the eventual duration of the COVID-19
pandemic. Title: Apollo's Arrow: the profound and enduring impact of coronavirus on the way we live. Look for the 2021 paperback edition, which
contains a new preface and afterword. Publisher is Little, Brown; NY,NY.
Christakis refers to himself as a "hospice doctor," + has a degree in sociology ... he teaches at Yale University + lives in Vermont. Anyway, on page
323, he has a graph of pandemic duration estimates for Earth's known pandemics; some are viral in cause, some are bacterial. From the historical data
in that book (and from Wikipedia, believe it or not), I collected 3 examples of probable viral pandemics in Earth's past:
Antonine plague ---- 15 yrs
Plague of Cyprian ---- 21 yrs minimum
Spanish flu ---- 3 yrs (H1N1 virus, a novel virus at that time)
Actually, these 3 may have all been novel viruses in their eras. These pandemics occurred many years before any vaccinations or other potential
counter-measures were known, although the residents of Greeley, Colorado did manage to escape infection by walling themselves off from outside
visitors. I think of these 3 examples as worst-case scenarios for a viral pandemic duration. Adding up each of those duration numbers gives us 39
years total. Divide that number by 3 to give a result of 13 years average (worst-case) duration. I then "assume" that with COVID-19 in the 21st
century, we are looking at a minimum total duration of 10 years -- even with a variety of vaccines now available -- simply because so many mistakes
and gaps in government, medical, and public health planning were made. (Example: As of 2023, there are still worldwide intra- and inter-
governmental arguments going on about the implications of aerosol transmission of COVID-19.) Etcetera!
Since I made the above calculation, I started thinking of the minimum duration of COVID-19 as five years overall *if* we are lucky, 10 years
otherwise. If so, there's a long time yet to go. Be careful out there.