54
|
CovidReference.com
tion of intense SARS-CoV-2 community transmission, strangers must not come together. Coronaviruses have come a long way (Weiss 2020) and will stay with us for a long time. Questions still abound: When will we be able to move freely around the world as we did before? Will we wear face masks for years? When we will see the impact of COVID-19 vaccines on the spread of the virus? How long will it take to vaccinate the majority of the global population? Will the immunity be long-lasting? Will the virus mutate, forcing new control measures and a new rush for a more effective vaccine? Will there be any nightlife event with densely packed people dancing and shouting and drinking in any city in the world anytime soon? Nobody knows. The French have an exquisitely precise formula to express unwillingness for living in a world you do not recognize: “Un monde de con!” Fortunately, we are slowly but surely capable of walking out of this “monde de con” thanks to a scientific community that is larger, stronger, and faster than at any time in history. (BTW, some politicians who were skeptical of science habe been ousted out of office. It is hight time!) As of today, we still do not know how long-lasting, how intense, and how deadly this pandemic will be. We are walking on moving ground and, in the coming months and years, we will need to continue to be flexible, resilient, and inventive, looking for and finding solutions nobody would have imagined just a few months ago. Sure enough though, science will lead the way out. If we could leap five years into the future and read the story of COVID-19, we would not believe our eyes.
References Adam D. A guide to R - the pandemic's misunderstood metric. Nature. 2020 Jul;583(7816):346348. PubMed: https://pubmed.gov/32620883. Full-text: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586020-02009-w Adam DC, Wu P, Wong JY, et al. Clustering and superspreading potential of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Hong Kong. Nat Med. 2020 Sep 17. PubMed: https://pubmed.gov/32943787. Fulltext: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-1092-0 Anand S, Montez-Rath M, Han J, et al. Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in a large nationwide sample of patients on dialysis in the USA: a cross-sectional study. Lancet. 2020 Sep 25;396(10259):1335-44. PubMed: https://pubmed.gov/32987007. Full-text: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32009-2 Andronico A, Kiem CT, Paireaux J, et al. Evaluating the impact of curfews and other measures on SARS-CoV-2 transmission in French Guiana. medRxiv 2020, posted 12 October. Fulltext: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.07.20208314 Anonymous. Deutsche Box-Olympiamannschaft mit Coronavirus infiziert. Die Zeit 2020, published 12 September. Full-text: https://www.zeit.de/sport/2020-09/trainingslageroesterreich-deutsche-box-olympiamannschaft-coronavirus-infektion-quarantaene
Kamps – Hoffmann
