When will COVID-19 end and how? Analysis based prediction
Background
When Covid-19 initially became known and its rampant spread became the one and only thing on most peoples mind; citizens of the world supported their Governments in lockdown; in-fact, millions on people in the UK and others were begging for lockdown to be initiated early.
What we thought would happen, we would lock down, control the spread and then await for the virus to die out, after which we will all emerge from our shackles, just in time as the last roll of toilet paper is being finished. Happy ending; or so we thought!
Well, it turns out, there was no way to stop this thing. It is too small, too fast and too smart to be finished off with toilet rolls and acrylic shields. Covid, a virus just like any other will find ways to reinvent itself so that it can stay alive, growing spreading and active.
Immunity Approach
After learning simply looking down the world will NOT be enough to kill the virus and frankly their is no further drastic measure to consider. The only approach thereafter is actually helping soldiers getting battle-ready for Covid.
To do this, the approach changed to playing the immunity game, whereby a combination of fast-paced-developed-and-approved vaccines combined with traffic light style restrictions where the flow of cases is controlled so that it gives those cases the best chance of survival within a functioning below-capacity healthcare system.
This would mean that within a certain period of time the population would either have been protected against Covid or have its own natural immunity, making Covid a very small, almost forgotten problem.
What science didn't see coming is the speed of which variants came along in particular the British Kent Variant, which was the first variant to actually change the grand scheme of things.
The British Variant
The key difference of this variant is the sheer speed of infection, whereby with the initial Covid variant a combo approach of vaccination and controlled immunity may have stood a chance. But then you throw in an F1 car and all breaks lose. The sheer volume of infection, border closures causing vaccine delays as well as further fear, scaremongering and once-again pushing and shoving in the supermarkets created a massive boom on infection.
This once again overwhelmed the healthcare systems but most importantly allowed the virus to spread at a renewed rate. A faster and uncontrollable rate.
A new Speed of Infection - A new game
Since the British Variant has launched the speed at which new variants are developed has accelerated, on top of the actual speed of infection.
This has cause the single biggest issue to the immunity based roadmap of unlocking and defeating Covid.
Look at India for instance, they were defeated by one thing - SPEED. They simply couldn't keep up with the speed of a yet another new variant: DELTA.
What this shows us
With a new circumstance comes a new plan; however in this case, there isn't a new plan the only plan is to keep up with the speed.
This means the speed of vaccination must be increased to match the speed of spread. The adaptability of the vaccine manufacturers must also be altered so that they can add protection for new variants sooner and have those delivered faster, en-masse.
Healthcare capacity must also be boosted so that they systems can cover Covid winter surges on top of the annual seasonal FLU surges.
In other words, the world is now playing catch-up and as soon as speed of spread = speed of vaccination + speed of sustained and well managed cases this will mean that the virus will start to die out or remain in a safe state of not causing massive harm until global immunity for this is solid; meaning no more variants, no speed and no danger.
How quickly will we reach that speed
Based on calculated predictions, taking into account the global supply chains, travel, third world countries, science and pharma production capacity as well as healthcare staffing shortages; the result indicates that somewhere LATE 2025.
I apologise for not painting a brighter picture but this is what I have added up to and I will look forward to share the breakdown of the calculation in another post.
Thank you for reading.