Well, even if it could, the powers that be will be milking it for years to come. Fear is addictive to useful idiots. Our only hope is that, since most people will be exposed to it, the mortality rate among the old will go down enough that it doesn't show up in the data, so it loses its impact. Or, the people scared of it become acclimated to it, and stop caring (which is a known psychological effect, scary things are scary only when they're new).

Yeah, but we've been living with the common cold for years. Once in a while, a couple of times a year or, if lucky, once every few years, we each catch a cold. We stay home, maybe, and chill for a few days until it passes. I never went to the doctor for a cold, cause I know there's no cure. Same with the flu. One runs the risk of getting it every now and again. I have no idea on how many times on average someone gets the flu. I only recall getting it a couple of times in my life and I'm over 50. Once everyone stops with the addiction to fear porn and hysteria, people will treat it like a cold or the flu. It all depends on how virulent wuflu really is. I'm leaning towards ILI, influenza like illness. I don't have the numbers handy but most years, the 'regular' flu kills a whole lotta people and no one batted an eye.

"The new normal" implies a regime change. Not "our temporary measure", not "the interim normal", not "a conditional stance", "the new normal".

Since the beginning they've never had intention of letting up.

It will go back to normal, but while getting your annual flu shot, you also get a covid shot amd that's it

So basically nothing changes

Yeah, but polio is a DNA virus, right? RNA viruses usually mutate too fast to make an effective vaccine. That's why HIV doesn't have a vaccine either, it's an RNA virus.

Spez: Scratch that, polio is an RNA virus, but it's very simple, so there was an effective protein target for a vaccine.