> The virus is mutating but it is also losing its lethal nature. In one of the first articles I read on covid, in Feb 2020, the experts stated that they expect

> The virus is mutating but it is also losing its lethal nature. In one of the first articles I read on covid, in Feb 2020, the experts stated that they expected this to become endemic, either like the other common cold coronaviruses, or something a bit worse like the flu [0]: > I think there is a reasonable probability that this becomes the fifth community-acquired coronavirus... settling down to something like the other four coronaviruses. > What we may be seeing “is the emergence of a new coronavirus … that could very well become another seasonal pathogen that causes pneumonia,” said infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota. It would be “more than a cold” and less than SARS: “The only other pathogen I can compare it to is seasonal influenza.” This has probably happened before. The Russian Flu epidemic of 1889-1890. It looks like it was a coronavirus that jumped from cattle to people. That pandemic was one of the deadliest of that century. Now that same virus is one of our common cold bugs [1]. [0] https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-cor... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43