Covid Chatter

 Ulrike Guerot wrote a piece for Welt today, and it's likely to generate a fair amount of discussion and hype.  So the subject matter?  

We are two years into the Covid era, and what you can generally say about the German government's angle of 'resolutions'?  They basically revolve around vaccinations as being 'it' (nothing much else).  Guerot even wrote the comment 'dead-end' in describing the vaccination path.  

In standing back and admiring the situation.....22 months into Covid....there's basically four paths (my opinion) to where we are today. 

First, the ban rules are designed to limit contact.  This means at stores, public functions, soccer games, discos, airplanes, subways, and schools.  The 1.5-meter social distancing situation is generally adhered to by 99-percent of Germans.

If you gaze across society....the human contact business has probably hurt a fair segment of society.  Older guys who lived alone.....walked into local pubs to socialize.  Their lives are marginalized because of the shutdowns and social destabilization.

Second, vaccination has become a 'you-gotta-do-it' situation.  The whole 2G business?  It's designed to make your life miserable enough as a non-vax guy.....that you have no choice on the matter.  The effective nature of the vaccinations?  Every day that passes....your antibody numbers diminish, and no one can say much unless you tested a guy every month.  The necessity of the booster....well, it's because your system is 'burning up' antibodies every week.  

Third, herd immunity.  If you asked the German health authorities at the federal level....they will today shy away from the phrase and refuse to comment.  For almost all of 2020....herd immunity was uttered a dozen times a week via public TV news.  The idea was at two-thirds of society being immunized, and then we'd reach a plateau of sorts.  Around October in Germany, the herd topic got dumped.  You can laugh over the full year of chatter, and how quick it just disappeared.  

Where things are headed in 2022?  Unknown, but I'm guessing that treatment strategies will finally get some discussion, and a dozen odd treatment plans will be openly accepted by the end of 2022.  More Omikron variants?  No doubt.  Year three promises to be a repeat of 2020 and 2021.