Coronavirus may not go away, but it can change into a mild disorder

What if Covid-19 doesn’t go away? Experts say that some form of the disease is likely to fall for years. But it is not likely what it will look like in the future.

Will the coronavirus, which has already killed more than 2 million people worldwide, be eradicated by a global vaccination campaign, like smallpox? Will dangerous new changes avoid vaccines? Or will the virus stay around for a long time, changing into a mild cold, like the common cold?

Eventually, the virus known as SARS-CoV-2 will continue to be “another animal in the zoo,” joining the many other infectious diseases that humanity has learned to live with, the expects Dr T Jacob John, who studies viruses and was at the forefront of India’s efforts to tackle polio and HIV / AIDS.

But no one knows for sure. The virus is growing rapidly, and new changes are emerging in different countries.

The risk of these new variables was determined by the discovery of Novavax Inc. the company ‘s vaccine did not work as well against muta versions circulating in Britain and South Africa. The more the virus spreads, experts say, the more likely it is that a new variable will be able to eliminate routine tests, treatments and vaccines.

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For now, scientists agree on the immediate premise: Vaccinate as many people as possible. The next step is less certain and depends largely on the strength of immunity provided by vaccines and natural diseases and how long it lasts.

“Do people often get diseases again? We don’t have enough data yet, ”said Jeffrey Shaman, who studies viruses at Columbia University. Like many researchers, it is believed that there are slim chances that vaccines will provide lifelong protection.

If people have to learn to live with Covid-19, the nature of that compatibility depends not only on how long immunity lasts, but also how the virus grows . Does it go around a lot every year, requiring annual blows, like the flu? Or does it appear every few years?

This question about what happened next drew Jennie Lavine, a psychologist at Emory University, who is a co-author of a recent paper in Science that predicted a relatively optimistic situation: After most people are exposed to the virus – either through vaccines or surviving diseases. – the pathogen will keep “circulating, but will usually only cause a mild illness,” like a common cold.

While immunity acquired from other coronaviruses – such as those caused by the common cold or SARS or MERS – declines over time, symptoms of relapse tend to be milder than the first illness, he said. Ottar Bjornstad, co-author of the paper Science that studies viruses at Pennsylvania State University.

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“Adults usually don’t get really bad symptoms if they’ve already been exposed,” he said.

The prediction in the Science paper is based on a study of how other coronaviruses have been transmitted over time and assumes that SAR-CoV-2 is increasing, but not rapidly or rapidly. radical.

The 1918 flu pandemic could tell us about the Covid-19 course. That pathogen was an H1N1 virus with genes derived from birds, not coronavirus. At the time, vaccines were not available.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that a third of the world’s population has been captured. Eventually, after an infected person dies or becomes immune, the virus stops spreading rapidly. It later moved to a less robust form, which experts say will rotate seasonally.

“The offspring of flu pandemics usually develop into the warmer seasonal flu viruses that we get for many years,” said Stephen Morse, who studies viruses at Columbia University.

It is not yet clear how future mutations in SARS-CoV-2 will shape the pathway of the conventional disease.

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As new changes emerge – some more contagious, some more brutal and some less responsive to vaccines – scientists are being reminded that they do not yet know about the future of the virus, said Mark Jit, who studying viruses at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“We have only known about this virus for about a year, so we still do not have data to show its behavior over five or 10 years,” he said.

Of the more than 12 billion coronavirus vaccine injections made in 2021, rich countries have bought about 9 billion, and many have options to buy more. This inequality is a threat because it will make poor countries wait longer for the vaccine, during which time the disease will continue to spread and kill people, said John Mackay, who will be studying viruses at the University of Queensland.

It is worrying that some vaccines are so effective against the new strains, but because the sights offer some protection, vaccines could still be used to stop the virus from spreading. spread, Ashley St. said. John, who studies immune systems at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.

Dr. Gagandeep Kang, an expert on infectious diseases at the Christian Medical College at Vellore in southern India, said the evolution of the virus raises new questions: How high is the virus at the new strain? Do countries have to get vaccinated from scratch? Or could a booster dose be given? “These are issues that you need to address in the future,” Kang said.

The future of the coronavirus may be different from other infectious diseases that have been hit largely by vaccines that provide lifelong immunity – such as measles. The spread of measles falls after many people are vaccinated.

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