My line of thought now is that with COVID endemic in the terrestrial human ecosystem, which is the ecosystem any conceivable version of society will occupy, we are going to be getting it twice a year from now on, any cumulative organ damage or cancer risk will simply become part of the background noise of human lifespans ‘cause it’s not like we have an option other than having it in the mix along with the other coronaviruses we had been getting every few months our whole lives all along.

A hope is that like those others repeated infection builds lasting defenses, humans born after its introduction tank it in infancy and childhood like them and already-born humanity is better protected after each wave (and booster vaccine) – my own experience follows a path where the first, unvaccinated infection turned into a 24-month total brain and nerve collapse, the second brought 6 months of energy issues (both with “long tails” trailing off afterward), the third was just the initial respiratory week, and a possible 4th and 5th just brought a mild comeback of the 1st/2nd “long” symptoms but none of their own

In any case I expect any lingering roughness to polish out after we and the virus spend 500 years or so coevolving, I suppose within that span we might hit on some other angle to play with it.