Prime Minister Scott Morrison told Sunrise yesterday that hospitalisations not infections will become the key COVID benchmark once populations are vaccinated:
“Yes, we will get outbreaks from time to time and will deal with those outbreaks, but it would be a mistake to think that if we have high rates of vaccination that you won‘t get cases. The UK is approving the exact opposite“…
“We know at the present time, that people who are vaccinated can still pass on the virus”…
“What the vaccination does is it prevents you from getting a serious illness. The key figure going forward will be how many people are suffering serious illness, and that‘s what we are watching closely in the United Kingdom”.
I believe this is the correct view.
Vaccination rates across the UK continue to rise with 41.4 million residents receiving their first dose and 31.7 million receiving their second:
High vaccination rates.
While these vaccinations have not stopped the virus from being transmitted:
UK COVID infections back on the rise.
They have held hospitalisations down:
UK hospitalisations rising but remain low.
And fewer people in the UK are dying of the virus:
Low COVID deaths.
This suggests that the vaccination of UK residents has greatly reduced the lethality of the virus, even if it hasn’t stopped transmission.
My guess is that once the world is sufficiently vaccinated, COVID will be treated like the common cold or flu. Infections will be common, but actual hospitalisations and deaths will be rare.
Then the world will return to normal.
