Feeling frustrated with scientists

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I do get frustrated when scientists don't have the answers particularly in terms of the covid virus. I understand they don't have all answers and don't know as much as other people do and so they can only speculate and guess as to what could happen. It frustrates me more when some respectable scientists and virologists say that it is not always the case that a virus mutates into something milder as it evolves and that it is a misconception that that happens and some other scientists counter that argument and say that historically pandemic viruses evolve over time from deadly variants to milder forms possibly to adapt to the human population. I do feel torn sometimes by these arguments and they do still have me worrying about. Even a colleague I work with was telling me that she didn't like the fact that the UK government stopped making self-isolation a law and worried that the more cases there are, the more she thought the virus could mutate into something worse like some of those scientists said that I mentioned. Some of them seem to make out that Covid is a virus that humans can't live and so people have to remain isolated from other people for days, weeks or months even to point where people develop mental health problems because human interaction is being suppressed and that is equally frustrating because we all know that interaction with humans is what viruses rely on in order to spread but humans have lived through many epidemics and pandemics over thousands of years before Covid. There is a lot of talk about Covid becoming endemic but the thing is, is that endemic means that a virus is around but isn't causing large waves of cases and deaths to the point where hospitals are struggling. At the moment there are still waves of cases and deaths. Another scientific article I saw said that Covid might not become endemic and will remain as an epidemic or pandemic virus. I do remember Stephen Fry when he was host of QI was saying that if there is any group of people who say ''We don't know'' a lot, it is scientists.

As a person who has a few currently incurable diseases in the endocrine, mitochondrial, neurological, realms, I do understand the concept through that lens.

I know what you mean. Scientists can only say what anyone can say. They might as well stop saying anything as they can't say anything useful. You might as well rely on fortune tellers.

Having said that, I know that some scientists are making small progress in discovering facts - progress, which cumulatively will be useful but is individually so small and feels useless.

Regarding Covid-19, statistically it's quite safe for most individuals but there are vulnerable people who can die from it. So whether you are safe or not, we should still try not to spread it to protect those vulnerable people.

It's endemic, and was destined to be as soon as it left Wuhan.

There's a slight chance an actual severe mutant can come along, but it'll likely have to give up something for that, and those they've made in labs (lol), lose infectiousness. So, they'll be outcompeted in the wild. But, it's more likely for the virus to lose virulence as it circulates due to host genome adaptation. One can say Omicron is evidence for this, even if it arose via forced evolution in "unnatural" conditions. Whether people with HIV, wild mice (they're similar to us in many ways), or in a lab via serial passaging through antibody incubated cell lines; this mimics sped up natural evolution and showed which way it wanted to go. It was quite well adapted to begin with, so I wouldn't expect it to lose too much virulence and it'll likely end up similar to seasonal influenza in severity or a little less (Omicron is about 40% more severe than that, which isn't too bad). It likely won't be similar to the other endemic human coronaviruses, as they likely started off poorly adapted and probably weren't more severe.

Spillback from spillover might throw some funky mutants at us though, since its receptor-binding domain of the spike is hilariously adaptable. They should be attenuated too, like Omicron, but you never know.

I kinda stopped following SARS-CoV-2 science back with Delta. Omicron was a welcome "surprise". I guess I found all I needed to know. It was soon apparent it wasn't SARS in virulence back in 2020, so I mostly stopped worrying for my mother and nice people from my past. I like looking up info on potential threats, obviously.

↑ What really seems to concern you is your own lack of understand of what science is all about.

Someone said to me once ''What have you got to be scared of ?''. She told me she didn't believe in Covid, never got jabbed and caught the virus herself and recovered. I did remind of my worries and concerns and told her that a 28 year old guy caught it and was hospitalised and said he regretted not getting vaccinated. I'm in the early 30s with no underlying conditions that I know of. I'm in a lower risk group. There are probably even less people in their 40s dying from the virus. My sister who is 28 and had two or three jabs caught Covid and was negative after 3 days and my mum's partner who is 42 who had 3 jabs was ill for six days and isolated in his bedroom during that time and I'm living in the same house as them but I was tested negative. We are all still alive but I don't understand why Covid is still something for someone like me to fear if I catch it. I only wish I was in the same mindset as that woman who spoke to me about it even though I disagree with her belief that there is no pandemic.

From what I've observed and learnt about a pandemic, here is what I think: mutations are essentially random. A passing gamma ray, a reaction with a free radical in the person's body or some other mechanism will have caused the mutation. The mutation may result in a change in the spike protein (its attachment-to-cells mechanism) or its RNA (its ability or otherwise to replicate and/or kill). Many mutations will "fail" in that they cannot infect anyone (e.g. the spike protein is no longer effective at binding to cells in the body or the "child" can no longer replicate). A mutation that remains infectious will infect someone if passed on from its initial host (by airborne particles, direct contact etc. If it is more infectious (replicates faster or binds more effectively) than its "parent" (bearing in mind that viruses aren't living organisms) it will displace its predecessor and become the dominant strain. Its lethality might change or not. If it becomes more lethal, it will kill a higher percentage of people it infects. The next question is whether it kills more quickly or slowly. If it kills more quickly (and its host/s are possibly isolating) it will likely infect fewer people over time and possibly die out or recede into the background. If it kills more slowly and/or evades any immunity its host may have it will spread more widely. For a virus, the degree of lethality is a two-edged sword. More effective at killing means more infected people dying but in the process, reducing the number of contacts it can spread to (people get sick and die before they have time to pass it on). Ebola was like this which actually meant it could be pretty much stopped in its tracks. The new strains of Covid19 that have been appearing clearly retain the ability to replicate and infect. Probably most important in the process is the speed with which a new more infectious strain kills (if it is still lethal). I've probably missed a few things and am, as always, open to being corrected but that is the picture I've developed. End-of-brain-dump.

I received my second booster last week.  A little soreness at the injection site and a general hungover feeling the next day were all the reactions I had.

Due to my work and church activities, I met over 30 people who have since died from covid -- none were vaccinated.

Knowing those odds, I will continue to get boosted against covid.

Is this scientific?  No, it is just common sense.