The coronavirus pandemic.
It's the reason your grandma keeps saying
"You filled out" whenever she hugs you.
Ever since the vaccine came out,
Americans have been looking forward to the day
when the country will achieve herd immunity,
which is when a disease dies out
because enough of the population has either been vaccinated,
or previously infected,
or COVID just doesn't feel safe around them.
But now, it seems like people are going to have
to wait a lot longer than they thought.
In the fight against COVID-19,
this is a headline no one wants to see.
"Reaching 'Herd Immunity' is Unlikely in the United States,"
experts now believe. One biologist
even telling the New York Times
"The virus is unlikely to go away.”
NEWSWOMAN: Vaccine hesitancy remains a very real issue,
threatening the country's chances
at achieving herd immunity.
Scientists believe the virus will,
"likely become a manageable threat that will continue
"to circulate in the United States for years to come,
"still causing hospitalizations and deaths,
but in much smaller numbers."
You know, honestly, in these divided times,
it's just great to see all Americans coming together
to fail at something so easily achievable.
But, yeah, thanks to the many people who refuse
to take a lifesaving vaccine, experts now think
that coronavirus is basically gonna become
one of those antivirus pop-ups.
You know, we're gonna minimize it,
but we'll never really delete it.
And let me just say this.
If you can get vaccinated, but you haven't yet,
well, this should be all the incentive you need,
because you don't want
to be getting corona ten years from now.
I mean, think about it.
Not only could you die,
but you'll be getting roasted for being out of date.
Oh, my God, you got COVID?
That's so choogy.
Everyone's dying from snake flu now.
(groans)
And, yes, this is the fault of anti-vaxxers,
but one thing that definitely isn't helping is the media.
Because I don't know if you've noticed this.
The media loves running stories about the few people
who are having adverse reactions to the vaccine.
Oh, man got a vaccine. Now his foot is sore.
Oh, woman got a vaccine. Now she forget it's Thursday.
Because even though those cases are a tiny minority,
those are the stories that people want to hear the most.
Right? Local news isn't running stories about how all the people
with no side effects are having a fine time
because let's be honest-- that news just wouldn't sell.
-(crickets chirping) -Thank you, Pam.
Breaking news. I am outside the house of a man
who received the vaccine earlier this week
and is completely fine.
Right now, he is in that room eating dinner with his family,
and by all...
Oh, it looks like he's seen me.
I'm going to have to leave now.
But even without herd immunity,
society is bound to start reopening.
So over in the U.K., researchers are trying
to figure out what kind of events people can go to
without causing the virus
to start spreading out of control again,
and the way they are trying to figure it out
just may be the greatest science experiment of all time.
NEWSWOMAN: Live music is starting to make a comeback
in some places, as a way to track coronavirus progress.
The English city of Liverpool hosted a one-off
music festival yesterday to test
whether such events spread the virus.
About 5,000 people ditched face coverings
and social distancing rules to attend the outdoor event,
and they just had to test negative for COVID first
and agree to a follow-up test in five days.
Data from the festival will be used
by the government's events research program to help
understand the effects of crowds on the spread of the virus.
And the festival's organizer says
he hopes the project will help
get outdoor events back on the calendar this year.
Oh, yeah! A concert.
Now that's my kind of medical experiment.
Not Louis Pasteur and that bullshit with a dog.
The best part of it is no one caught COVID.
But, sadly, 100 people did come down with EDM.
(coughing rhythmically)
But that's right.
Thousands of people showed up to a concert,
and the purpose was to see if they would catch COVID.
Which, let's be honest, doesn't seem like a real idea, right?
That seems like something Ja Rule would do and be like,
"Yeah, I mean, that happened. You didn't get it, right? Fyre!"
And if you ask me, I think
an experimental concert is a great idea.
Not just for COVID.
I mean, you can test for all sorts of things.
Like, you can test for the effect
of constantly dropping the beat.
You can finally find out-- does that hurt the beat?
Can the beat even feel pain?
And will the beat be able to go on?
But what I love the most here is how many volunteers they got
to submit to medical experimentation
just because they wanted to see a concert.
I mean, you realize this means they could ramp up experiments
on everything just based on who's performing.
Can we please take your kidneys?
We need to test something.
What? No!
We'll give you tickets to Beyoncé.
Oh, my God, take them both!
Tell Beyoncé they're mine. Tell her they're my kidneys.
Maybe she'll sing about them.