As the coronavirus continues to spread across the country – making more than 22.6 million people sick and killing 376,476 so far – a new study offers some encouraging news for a change. In an article published in Science today, the researchers concluded that the coronavirus may eventually become nothing more than a disease similar to the common cold, the New York Times reports.
It looks heavenly, so let’s dig into the details: SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has taken a heavy toll because our immune systems haven’t seen it before, making them unprepared to fight it (Children , whose immune systems are constantly exposed to foreign pathogens, are better than us adults to fend off the virus.) Once we have all been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 or the vaccine, the virus will become “endemic”, Times explains, which means it will still be around, but at low levels, rarely resulting in the serious symptoms we see now.
The study’s findings underscore the importance of efficient vaccine distribution, which the United States has so far failed to achieve. The time it takes for a virus to reach endemic status depends on transmission and vaccination rates, said Jennie Lavine, a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University and the study’s lead author. Times. “So, really, the name of the game is to get everyone exposed to the vaccine for the first time as soon as possible.”
The researchers referred to six human coronaviruses, including the four responsible for the common cold, as well as SARS and MERS, to help predict the trajectory of SARS-CoV-2, according to the Times. All six trigger a similar immune response, but SARS-CoV-2 appears to more closely resemble the four cooled coronaviruses, which are endemic and cause only mild illness. (The SARS and MERS coronaviruses led to serious illnesses, but were less widespread.)
Based on previous data, Lavine and colleagues saw that most of us are infected with the common cold coronavirus for the first time when we are about 3 to 5 years old, on average. We can then be reinfected several times, increasing our immunity and spreading the virus in the process, but without getting sick. SARS-CoV-2 may follow a similar path, say the researchers.
It could take years to decades of natural infections before SARS-CoV-2 becomes endemic, Lavine told Times, leaving large-scale disease and death in its wake. But with a vaccine administered quickly, that schedule may seem like another year or even half a year. The vaccine is unlikely to eradicate SARS-CoV-2, but it would make it less harmful.
Scientists interviewed by Times Those not involved in the study see this as a likely scenario, agreeing with Lavine’s prediction that the vaccine will protect against disease, but not infection and transmission per se.
A limitation of Lavine and colleagues’ model is that we have not seen how common cold coronaviruses – which the study assumes are similar to SARS-CoV-2 – affect older people who have not yet been exposed to them, Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard School of Public Health TH Chan told the Times. An alternative possibility: COVID-19 can become similar to seasonal flu, whose severity varies from year to year.
New viral variants that bypass the immune response may also make the story less straightforward, added Lipsitch. Still, he believes Lavine and his colleagues’ prediction is plausible. In the middle of this harsh winter, I will accept all the optimism I can.