Coronavirus has caused a significant loss of life and negatively affected the global economy.
When Covid struck the world in 2020, most of the countries went in to lockdown to contain the spread of the virus and reduce the sudden increased burden on their health care systems.
The hope at that stage was that a vaccine will soon be invented, and we will all get out of jail.
Good news was that researchers indeed managed to create some reasonably effective vaccines.
However, the vaccination programs took their time and only a small proportion of the world population is fully vaccinated so far.
Vaccination reduces the severity of illness, but does not stop us from getting infected with Covid.
Therefore, the only way forward is to vaccinate everyone and let everyone get exposed to Covid.
Unfortunately, some may succumb to Covid in spite of vaccination and this will be similar to what happens with flu infections, where some people still succumb to flu infection in spite of vaccination.
The challenge in doing the above will be in predicting how much will this cause a burden on health care systems.
It will be particularly challenging for countries like Australia & New Zealand, that went in to strict lockdown and completely closed off their borders with the rest of the world because a very small percentage of their population would have developed natural immunity to Covid, and they will have to vaccinate all of their adult population before opening their borders.
It is generally accepted that natural immunity is better than the immunity provided by vaccines. So, in theory, the countries that were not very strict with lockdowns may be at a slight advantage (in short term) compared to the countries that went for strict lockdown and closure of borders.
Coronavirus is here to stay, and we will all get infected with it at some stage.
There is no escape.
Getting vaccinated and keeping ourselves fit and healthy to fight off the infection is the only way forward.
