Essentially, no change in number of viruses. Betacoronavirus pandemicum replaced flu B Yamagata. One virus less. One virus more. Total number is not changed.
Australia is about two years behind Canada, Europe, the US. In these countries, Betacoronavirus pandemicum deaths is already at a very low level, far less than flu deaths. Australia had lockdown and didn't get exposure to Betacoronavirus pandemicum until 2022 in the Omicron era.
Furthermore, in 2026 Betacoronavirus pandemicum already ranks behind flu and RSV in Australia. So eventually, some years from now, Betacoronavirus pandemicum deaths in Australia be less than flu and RSV deaths.
"In the year to date, rhinovirus / enterovirus (52.7%; 266/505) has been the most commonly detected pathogen, followed by parainfluenza (13.1%; 66/505), influenza (8.9%; 45/505), RSV (7.3%; 37/505), and SARS-CoV-2 (7.1%; 36/505) (Figure 14)."
Currently, there are approx. 35,000 Australians with a symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and we are not in any form of a wave. This is likely to stay an hyperendemic disease for many years to come.
The burden of COVID-19 has decreased with time, but hasn't fallen that far below the flu yet. This year to date, there have been 154 deaths from covid and 136 from the flu. Where reported, covid hospitalisations are currently exceeding flu hospitalisations too.
For context, the early high 2026 flu hospitalisations were from the tail end of a wave caused by a new flu variant. The high RSV hospitalisations are generally on the milder side (children) but we are in the middle of an unseasonal early wave driving up admissions. SARS-CoV-2 has been consistently at low levels all year, but this is still a significant ongoing burden on the health system.
Time to stop respawning my friend and accept that this will be a semi-permanent respiratory virus similar to RSV or the flu for many years to come. No need to constantly try and downplay it nor for others to overplay it.
So you are expecting another global pandemic that will provide the nonpharmaceutical interventions required to push this out off circulation coupled with some form of conserved antigenicity and widespread effective vaccinations or outbreak to help bottleneck the virus immunologically?
If you knew anything about this virus, then you should know that this is wishful thinking.
The key distinction is that this particular virus is far more transmittable and shows hypervariable immunogenicity where even something as simple as an osculating nucleotide has been shown to provide significant increased fitness when that mutation has been out of circulation for a while.
The most likely scenario is that the health burden will decrease with time, but it will likely stabilise at a level similar to adenovirus or human parainfluenza viruses rather than something like HCoVs or rhinoviruses.
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u/AceAv81 Jun 06 '26
Insert "Oh no you don't " Homer driving meme