11 ms·
Will SARS-CoV-2 become endemic?
- blakesterz 6y agoThe answer seems to be :shrug: which is what I would think the answer would be right now. From the middle of the article: "Should reinfection prove commonplace, and barring a highly effective vaccine delivered to most of the world’s population, SARS-CoV-2 will likely become endemic" And the closing sentence: "A duration of immunity similar to that of the other betacoronaviruses (~40 weeks) could lead to yearly outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2, whereas a longer immunity profile, coupled with a small degree of protective cross-immunity from other betacoronaviruses, could lead to apparent elimination of the virus followed by resurgence after a few years. Other scenarios are, of course, possible, because there are many processes at play and much that remains unresolved."
- rado 6y agoThe answer seems to be “maybe”.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoOf course, no way to control coordinated mask wearing for 7 billion people simultaneously without decades of planning. HIV has killed around 50 million over the past 40 years, and we know how to stop that but it is still endemic and will be for at least a century.
- johnfn 6y agoWell, HIV is different - once you have it you’re infectious for life unless without some sort of intervention.
- Skunkleton 6y agoSure, but you also can't transmit HIV just by being in the same room.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agoI reckon it's harder to get people to always practice safe sex than it is to wear masks.
- sieabahlpark 6y agoUnless you're in California where it's legal to knowingly give someone HIV without telling them.
- evan_ 6y agopeople are having sex a lot less frequently than they are breathing air, though
- jaywalk 6y agoHeh, speak for yourself ;) /joke
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agoFortunately HIV isn't communicable by sharing air. Despite that truvada costs $2000/month[] in the us. And, unless I'm mistaken, it needs to be taken for life, or until a proper cure is found and hopefully that doesn't cost $2,000,000. Truvada costs more than the median us salary. I'd rather risk covid19. Death would come much faster than an agonising death from untreated aids. [] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/aoc-hiv-drug-cost-us-australia-ceo-gilead-video-a8919316.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
- adventured 6y ago> Truvada costs more than the median us salary. While your points about the obscene cost of Truvada are spot on, your point about US incomes is not. For 2019 the median US income was $36,000 [1] (not ~$20,000). The median US full-time income was around $52,000 [2]. The median family income was $86,011 [3] and the median household income was $68,703 [4]. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N [2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-270.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27... [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA672N [4] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
- Kiro 6y agoIs the general consensus that the virus would be eradicated if everyone wore a mask? Is it enough?
- alex_young 6y agoIf that drops r below 1 long enough it would have to right? This seems especially hard to do though, since compliance would need to be nearly universal. You could potentially wipe out influenza and the common cold at the same time too though potentially.
- jhayward 6y agoInfluenza and coronaviruses have native (animal) reservoirs that keep pumping out new / novel variants, which makes extinction highly unlikely.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- throwmeaway_pls 6y agoWhat about viral reservoirs?
- wcoenen 6y agoSome individuals may stay infectious forever. E.g. Typhoid Mary[1] was quarantined twice, and the second time she remained isolated until death. (Thypoid fever is a bacterial infection, but I assume something similar can happen with a virus.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon
- xenonite 6y agoHerpes, HIV...
- Izkata 6y agoIn addition to the others, there'd be a long tail of few infections before it's actually wiped out, and during that period I expect too many people to just stop caring about masks for it to actually get eradicated.
- elorant 6y agoHIV is not asymptomatic though. If you have it you know it, and thus you can protect yourself and those around you. If we had an indication of who's a covid carrier we could have fought the pandemic a lot better.
- el_benhameen 6y agoHIV can absolutely be asymptomatic, and can be for long periods of time (~10 years in some cases). And it can be transmitted during this phase.
- elorant 6y agoI stand corrected
- 7952 6y agoThe initial infection can be flu like. After that it becomes asymptomatic and that can last a long time.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoI believe that HIV is still considered an epidemic, and in fact a pandemic, which is not the same as being endemic. Edit: This comment is being downvoted for some mysterious reason so I'll add a reference: "HIV/AIDS is considered by some authors a global pandemic. However, the WHO currently uses the term 'global epidemic' to describe HIV." [1]. There may some confusion as to what 'endemic' means by some commenters here... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_HIV/AIDS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_HIV/AIDS
- guenthert 6y agoNot sure of today, but as recent as 2011 it was. I don't think a lot has changed there. Wonder why your comment was down-voted.
- tinus_hn 6y agoMedication exists that can prevent HIV from causing AIDS and from passing the infection to others and also medication exists that can prevent the user from becoming infected. Practically speaking HIV is a solved problem.
- pmoriarty 6y agoWith so many people ignorant of the science, believing in wild conspiracy theories, being antivaxers and antimakers, of course it's going to become endemic. It remains to be seen if most people will even get vaccinated if/when a safe and effective vaccine becomes available. Even if people got vaccinated once, to actually eradicate COVID-19 they might have to get revaccinated multiple times, possibly over a span of years. We can't even get everyone to get flu shots. Getting everyone to get a new vaccine to a disease towards which there's so much disbelief will be even more difficult. We eradicated smallpox, but that was a fluke. Take a look at the eradication efforts towards HIV, measles, and polio. Much more progress could be made on these fronts, but paranoia, ignorance, and long-held beliefs and behavior patterns stand in the way. Even if COVID-19 itself is eradicated, something else to consider, that virologists have been pointing out, is that there are plenty of other coronaviruses in various animal species that could make the jump to infect humans, possibly causing another pandemic which is just as bad or even worse. A major shift in thinking and priorites has to happen globally, on many different fronts to make humans less vulnerable to this kind of disease in the long-run.
- mns 6y agoYou can’t just put all the “many” people in the same bucket. I hate this so much now in various circles. I also saw someone else with a similar idea: “why is there a second wave, are so many people anti maskers and non COVID believers?”. No, people had enough of the fumbling and incoherent messages, people are tired and the world is made up not just of developers that can work from home and see this pandemic from their windows while ordering food online, most of the people can’t afford to lose their jobs or stay at home. The whole world adopted this toxic US us vs. they model where everyone who doesn’t agree with you on everything is an ignorant fool and your enemy. Instead of acting with compassion and trying to convince people of the dangers of this disease, but also providing some sort of perspective of where we are going, we’re just calling everyone who has a different opinion an anti-* and be done with it.
- dehrmann 6y agoThere's also the issue that while it's deadlier than the flu, it's not that much deadlier, so people are genuinely looking at death rates and making different value judgements on if various restrictions are worth it.
- outoftheabyss 6y agoThis doesn't answer the question, merely tells us what we already know: not much
- rich_sasha 6y agoIf it does become endemic, the question is, what disease would it cause? The deadly Spanish and Hong Kong flu viruses didn't disappear, but rather evolved to cause yet-another seasonal flu after a few seasons. If the Covid virus does the same and causes yet-another-cold, who cares? Whereas if we're fighting Covid-the-disease for decades to come, well, God help us!
- guscost 6y agoThere is plenty of evidence to support the idea that as it becomes endemic, it will evolve toward yet-another-cold. There is no evidence in all of history for an endemic coronavirus that is not yet-another-cold. https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006215 https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4361674/#!po=0.555556 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4361674/#!po=0.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4873896/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4873896/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC136581/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC136581/
- johnchristopher 6y agoI am clueless but I'd like to ask: when you say "it will evolve toward yet-another-cold"... does it mean it'll be as harmless as the common cold or as common as the common cold but as dangerous as covid19 ?
- rusk 6y agoBenign enough to spread without concern
- Cactus2018 6y agoOf the ~200 common colds, 4 are known coronaviruses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold#Viruses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold#Viruses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Infection_in_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Infection_in_human...
- rch 6y agoI thought it already was, and the media, politicians, and general public were simply evidencing typical cluelessness. The last time I can recall reading a credible 'we can stop this' message was around February; Stat news IIRC.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoAt the moment we are going through a pandemic caused by a first contact with the virus. This is not an endemic state. Once this is over, if the virus remains in some sort of steady state in a given area, i.e. person to person transmission never stops so that a least a few cases always exist, then it will have become endemic in that area. Globally it might become endemic, or it might not, or a large-scale vaccination program might kill it off anyway. We don't know.
- davidw 6y agoWell that's depressing to contemplate.
- anoncake 6y agoIt's not really Covid that will become endemic but a mostly harmless virus descended from it.
- m3kw9 6y agoWith the common cold and flu they mutate a lot more than Covid, the chance is that it will be around for a long period of time then fizzle off because of the advance of meds together with low rate significant of mutations.
- amluto 6y agoAs I understand it, influenza mutates much faster than coronaviruses do. "The" common cold is really a whole bunch of unrelated viruses lumped together, and I haven't heard anything about the other coronaviruses that cause common colds mutating any faster than Covid.