In less than three months since it was officially diagnosed, the coronavirus proved to be the worst nightmare. It infected more than 420.000 people and killed over 18.000.
In less than three months turned geography upside down by moving the epicenter from China to Europe, as the world Health Organization officially stated. Just by adding Italy’s over 69,000 confirmed infected people to Germany’s 32,000, and Spain’s 42,000, without mentioning the rest of Europe’s countries, it gets close to a third of the total number of confirmed cases. But China seems to get through another burst of the virus, so in a short time, China might become the epicenter once again.
Scientists all over the world make different predictions about how the pandemic will end. If it will, the most frightening scenario is that COVID-19 will become a virus that, just like HIV, cannot be eradicated, as ExpressUK recently reported. But, unlike HIV, it might prove to be resilient to any cure.
Five Scenarios Regarding The Future of Coronavirus
Scenario no. 1: The Vaccine
The best case of the scenarios is that a cure is found, one that both kills and immunizes against the virus and/or the disease. Work is being done in this direction. France, for instance, has started a human trial with the former anti-malarial vaccine. The results on the 3,200 COVID-19 patients will say if the anti-malarial is anti-coronary too.
Scenario no.2: The Mutation
It is also a good case scenario. One that makes the virus grow tired of humans and mutates to the point where it needs another host. It happened with SARS in 2003. But Lawrence Gostin, the Director of WHO, is reluctant to this scenario, considering that “It’s tough to contain once you’ve got that kind of saturation. This is a much bigger challenge than SARS.”
Scenario no. 3: It’s seasonal
COVID-19 gives reason to hope that once the temperatures and the humidity get high, it won’t like it, and let us be. Just like the flu. But this is only a half-good scenario, Harvard University warns: “it is not reasonable to expect these declines alone to slow transmission enough to make a big dent.” Also, seasonal means it will get back next season.
Scenario no.4: Immunization
Governments such as the UK’s thought it might be wise to rely on the body’s natural immune system. Let the population get infected up to 60%, and the human body will naturally grow into becoming resistant to the virus. But there is a large flow in this scenario: the proof that once the organism survives the infection, it also becomes immune to it. For all is known, we might get infected once again.
Scenario no. 5: The never-ending story
This is the worst-case scenario. We’ll have to adapt and accept the coronavirus just like we’ve accepted cancer and AIDS, and hope that one day a cure will be found. “I think it’s unlikely that this coronavirus — because it’s so readily transmissible — will disappear completely,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.
We might not feel like looking the devil in the eye, but we should. We need to prepare for the worst while expecting the best. And this might be the significant psychological battle we’ll have to fight with ourselves to move on and resist coronavirus.
