There isn't a clear way to compare infectivity or severity of disease when the virus is a novel pathogen versus one that we have lived with for three years now. I'm not sure why we would expect that absolute risk of severe disease or death would be the same whether you've been previously infected or not.
Its absolutely possible, and even makes sense evolutionarily, that the virus would trend towards higher infectivity and lower mortality over time. I don't disagree with that at all, and ironically I recall that also being an idea that was considered dangerous and wrong early on.
My argument remains though, if the virus in 2020 couldn't be compared to the common cold and it was effectively blasphemous to do so it seems crazy to me that this would be accepted practice now. The sheer amount of both genetic and symptomatic differences required to make a deadly virus turn into a cold virus should warrant classifying it as a different virus and disease entirely.
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There isn't a clear way to compare infectivity or severity of disease when the virus is a novel pathogen versus one that we have lived with for three years now. I'm not sure why we would expect that absolute risk of severe disease or death would be the same whether you've been previously infected or not.
Its absolutely possible, and even makes sense evolutionarily, that the virus would trend towards higher infectivity and lower mortality over time. I don't disagree with that at all, and ironically I recall that also being an idea that was considered dangerous and wrong early on.
My argument remains though, if the virus in 2020 couldn't be compared to the common cold and it was effectively blasphemous to do so it seems crazy to me that this would be accepted practice now. The sheer amount of both genetic and symptomatic differences required to make a deadly virus turn into a cold virus should warrant classifying it as a different virus and disease entirely.