That is basically what has happened anyway, at least to health services in the UK (and more specifically, in Wales where I live). Covid cases make up a very small proportion of total patients, total patient numbers are significantly lower than average for the time of year (and that has been true since March 2020), yet you cannot now get an ambulance unless you are essentially dying, and availability of routine healthcare (at least, what NHS normally offered) has nosedived.

What feature of the virus does the anitgen test detect? If this one has so many mutations, it's not a ridiculous question.

I don't know the answer, but related: I read the manual that came with the new self tests and it mentioned what else it reacted to, like some micrograms of influenza type such and such. There was a whole host of things it responded to. They seem to just detect extremely broadly. Previous self tests didn't include this, I found it quite interesting.

We don't even know what it does - bit early to say things like this.

FWIW, coronaviruses have been around for a very long time. 30% of common colds are coronaviruses.

Aha! So in particular, this could be the prophecised variant that is super infectious, benign, and ends Covid as we know it?

I feel myself slowly peeling off from reality.

> FWIW, coronaviruses have been around for a very long time. 30% of common colds are coronaviruses.

I can’t say I have a particularly soft spot for colds. They just don’t do it for me, I could easily live without them.

I particularly liked how the mutations were described as "horrific". How are they? Do they have terrible claws and sharp pointy teeth?

As many as a horrific car crash has.

A car crash has lots of nasty pointy bits.

- Patches on patches and old bugs resurfacing with new ones will cause sysadmins to prematurely age and drop out of the profession

- Despite ever-more sophisticated designs and capabilities, machines will struggle to run the latest versions of applications that do the same thing as their predecessors decades ago

- Computing systems will feel more and more like houses of cards held together with string and tape, as "excess value" is aggressively engineered out

Oh wait. I was describing the Anti-Singularity (a pet theory of mine that all technological development inevitably outpaces our ability to maintain it, and that we will end our days desperately trying to get barely-functional systems that we have no hope of re-creating, to do something useful).

You've been taken in by the submitter's editing of the article's real title. This applies specifically to breakthrough infections. Vaccines do a great job of preventing COVID in the first place, which naturally includes long COVID.

According to a recent UK Government report, cases are higher among many age groups of vaccinated people, than among unvaccinated people.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... (Table 6)

Yes, I am fully aware the table also shows that hospitalisations and death rates are lower amongst vaccinated people.

Indeed. I hear that over half of people have a cough for weeks afterwards.

Having a cough is not enough of a threat to mandate forced booster shots on people (which will happen in US within 1-2 months.)