Endemicity evangelicals would have us believe that with increasing variance comes decreasing virulence and the transition of SARS-CoV-2 to a seasonal illness we all safely contract multiple times per year.
If we take this at face value, how does it play out?
Before we jump in, it bears stating that the concept of guaranteed decreasing virulence is bunk. We are fortunate that Omicron has been generally less severe than Delta, however its contagiousness has left orders of magnitude more people dead.
Long Covid can have significant and debilitating effects on daily life even if the initial infection was mild or asymptomatic. At this time, vaccination is believed, but not proven to help reduce chances of developing long covid.
The odds of developing Long Covid are believed to be between 10% and 30% based on reported cases. We know that cases in New Brunswick and around the world are under-reported, so the prevalence of Long Covid is likely lower than this.
Based on Dr. Tara Moriarty's excellent work, we are able to obtain a more accurate estimate of daily New Brunswick Covid cases and prevalence of Long Covid in our province. Using Dr. Moriarty’s numbers, we can see that the current odds of developing Long Covid in New Brunswick are approximately 6%.
So let's follow the story of "endemic covid" with its mild symptoms and continual variants. Without mitigations and with observed waning immunity, we can anticipate contracting Covid multiple times per year. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume a person contracts Covid twice each year.
What are this person's chances of not developing long covid?
Fairly good?
By our 6% number above, upon first infection, you have a 94% likelihood of not developing Long Covid. However, this is only the case for the first instance of infection. Each subsequent infection decreases your odds.
For example, on your second infection your odds of not developing Long Covid become:
0.94 x 0.94 or 0.94^2 or 0.88 or 88%
This is not an insignificant change to one's odds of remaining free of long term illness, after only one additional infection.
If we continue contracting Covid, as we do with influenza now, we see an ever decreasing chance of escaping the long term damage done by this disease.
Probability of not developing Long Covid in each subsequent infection looks like this:
current prob (Pc) = initial prob (Pi) ^ the number of infections (n)
After five years of twice annual infection, your probability of not developing Long Covid is
0.94^10 = 0.54 or 54%
After ten years
0.94^20 = 0.29 or 29%
Even in the fantasy world of "endemic covid", proponents of zero mitigations are damning ever increasing portions of the population to long term illness and disability. Who among us would wilfully participate in a system of semiannual infection where, after a decade, we have a 71% chance of developing a debilitating long term illness?
As time passes and more stories come to light we see the true impact of this disease. We continue to obtain a clearer picture of the affect of Public Health’s disregard; long term disability and illness.
The only true way to avoid this long term illness is to win the game against the ever decreasing odds. The only true way to win, to avoid Long Covid, is to avoid contracting Covid in the first place.
And that is a game the New Brunswick government is determined to make us lose.