• Infection Control

  Coronavirus, how will we live with it?

  Posted by Nigel Brown on 28 May 2020 at 7:05 am

  There’s a good chance the coronavirus will never go away.

  Even after a vaccine is discovered and deployed, the coronavirus will likely remain for decades to come, circulating among the world’s population.

  Experts call such diseases endemic, diseases that stubbornly resist efforts to stamp them out by mutating into different strains, think flu, measles, HIV, norovirus and how they continue to infect millions every year around the world.

  To many people at this time it is a daunting proposition driven by fear inducing media headlines, a coronavirus-tinged world without a foreseeable end. But experts in epidemiology, disaster planning and vaccine development say embracing that reality is crucial to the next phase of the pandemic response.

  With so much uncertainty, the persistence of the novel virus is one of the few things we can count on about the future. That doesn’t mean the situation will always be as dire as the current situation.

  There are already four endemic coronaviruses that circulate around the world continuously, causing the common cold, experts believe this virus will become the fifth — its effects growing milder as immunity spreads and our bodies adapt to it over time.

  For now, though, most people have not been infected and remain susceptible. The highly transmissible disease has surged in the past couple of months, even in countries that initially succeeded in suppressing it.

  Left alone, experts say, it will simply keep burning through the world’s population.

  Epidemiologist are writing that the virus is here to stay, the question is, how do we live with it safely.

  Nigel Brown replied 4 years, 4 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
• 0 Replies

Log In to Reply