"If COVID mutates fast enough it will stay with us forever, with a potentially much higher mortality than the flu." Most likely not. If C19 mutates in a fashi

"If COVID mutates fast enough it will stay with us forever, with a potentially much higher mortality than the flu." Most likely not. If C19 mutates in a fashion that allows it to "stay with us forever" it will almost certainly come with lower (cold-level) mortality. That is one of the trade-offs that the virus genome has to "make" as it mutates. More lethality is a genetic dead-end because of vaccines. Cold level lethality is a genetic steady state that would allow it to thrive.