1/20 Everybody is sick of covid. Everybody wants it to go away. But ....it wont. Sorry. It wont. A thread #covid #simples

2/20 Despite what we wish for, this is now an endemic respiratory disease of humans. #covid #simples

3/20 You dont need a phd in epidemiology or a BA in Medicine to realise that endemic viral diseases are almost never "eliminated" #covid #simples

1/20 Everybody is sick of covid. Everybody wants it to go away. But ....it wont. Sorry. It wont. A thread #covid #simples

2/20 Despite what we wish for, this is now an endemic respiratory disease of humans. #covid #simples

3/20 You dont need a phd in epidemiology or a BA in Medicine to realise that endemic viral diseases are almost never "eliminated" #covid #simples

4/20 Smallpox, yes. We knocked that on the head. One. The rest - we suppressed them via medical interventions - vaccines mainly. #covid #simples

5/20 So calls for simple solutions are understandable. But utterly naieve. Childlike. #covid #simples

6/20 "Curfew" ; "quarantine" ; "just be like <insert here>" all are well meaning and all are , bluntly, simplistic solutions to a complex problem. #covid #simples

7/20 My 9y old wants to "kick covid in the ass". Bravo, we all do. But as adults we SHOULD realise that a complex problem needs complex solutions #covid #simples

8/20 There are no magic bullets - even the vaccines are not going to get rid of this #covid #simples

9/20 There are no magically transposable solutions, there are at best some good practices that we MIGHT adopt #covid #simples

10/20 But every society and polity is unique. What works in X may not work in Y. When media types say "look at <insert here>, why cant we do that" it is often a childlike longing for the boody man to go away. #covid #simples

11/20 We are not new zealand. #covid #simples

12/20 We are not vietnam #covid #simples

13/20 We are not china. #covid #simples

14/20 We are not northern ireland #covid #simples

15/20 Can we learn from them? Sure. Can they from us? Sure also. #covid #simples

16/20 New Zealand, the longed for faraway land of normal, they havent even begun to vaccinate yet. #covid #simples

17/20 Nor has Australia #covid #simples

18/20 I guess in principle they could stay closed forever, like North Korea. But at some stage they will have to open up to normal travel and trade. #covid #simples

19/20 Nobody is perfect here. Everybody has made mistakes and some will only become apparent years from now #covid #simples

20/20 Simple solutions are lovely in principle. They rarely work in practice. We should demand better from media and commentators who peddle false hope of such. #covid #simples