I had an interesting conversation today with an individual who had just received her second dose of the vaccine. “In two weeks I can stop wearing that god-awful mask and I won’t have to worry about the virus because I will be immune!” she proudly exclaimed.
“I am sorry to burst your bubble, but you are not immune!” I replied.
“What? I wasted my time with this stuff?” she asked.
I went on to explain that she didn’t waste her time and that immune means 100% resistant to the virus. Not one of the vaccines available have performed to the immunity level. This however does not make them useless! I prefer to say that the vaccines like these, make a person “tolerant”. The Covid vaccine will help an individual become “Covid Tolerant”. We need to begin using that term to more accurately describe where we are, in the global drama.
The Covid virus is technically a living organism that inherently is programmed, like us, to survive. It adapts and evolves, like the human species has over the ages to maintain its place in the world. I would conjecture to say that Covid will be here for centuries. Covid has no intention to kill us, because if it did, it would lose its host. Our objective is to be able to coexist with it as we do with flu viruses and the multitude of other microscopic organisms that occupy relative the same world as we do.
The vaccine simply prepares our immune system for the invasion of the Covid virus, just as the flu vaccine prepares us for the attack of the fllu virus. These viruses have a major advantage over the human species in that they can quickly evolve into versions that tolerate the countermeasures that we naturally and scientifically create to protect us. The interactions are ongoing and extremely dynamic.
It is because of this that I have coined the term “Covid Tolerant” with all of the vaccines we can resist specific strains (versions) of the virus or the symptoms related to its occupation of our body are reduced. Slight variations in the virus may still have some bad effects. Only time will tell if we need to adjust the vaccines to accomodate the variants or if one series of injections were sufficient.
Keep in mind that the virus wants to survive too. “Covid tolerant” is simply a better description, that recognizes that the virus is here and we are looking for ways to co-exist, in spite of its presence. It is my term and not a medical description. I do believe that we would be better served if we began using this term, in our understanding that it is here also.
Let’s make the term “Covid Tolerant” go viral!