Originally Posted by
tetzen
I'm resigned to the nearly certain fact that this disease is now endemic and isn't going away anytime soon. I'll be willing to pick up a booster shot here in a few months when it comes around, although some of the discussion I've read on here has me thinking I might delay a bit longer than the 6 month window.
In thinking about the eradication of polio, I'm inclined to think it was a decades-long effort that took finding the right combination of vaccines, treatment, and diagnosis to stamp it out. I suppose it is wishful thinking to believe our society could tackle this disease and get rid of it in such a short timeframe. Instead, it appears we are traveling the typical path to addressing diseases within societies. That is, it comes, people deal with it, and slowly over time, our treatments and vaccines can make it fade into the background.
With that in mind, has there been any reasoned speculation lately on mutation paths that make Covid less dangerous overall while still remaining virulent? Delta is awful, but is there a potential expected offramp somewhere that gets this thing down to chickenpox danger levels?