Professor Gabriel Leung of Hong Kong University said at the beginning of last week, “There is a possibility that 60% of the world’s population will eventually contract the virus”. The spread rate is such that he believes that even if current quota measures prove necessary and effective in the early stages of the epidemic, it is likely to spread far beyond the countries currently affected.
Rapid spread
A WHO statistician and consultant, Ira longini, also corroborated the hypothesis put forward by Professor Leung. “With an average contamination of 2.5 people per case, she explains, the rate of contagion of the COVID-19 coronavirus can reach 60 to 80%”. The effect of the current measures is, according to this other specialist, to slow the spread, but this is inevitable, given the very nature of the threat.
Attenuated form of the virus
The particularity of a coronavirus being indeed to be able to pass from one species to another, the transformation capacity of COVID-19 is great, allowing it to permanently acclimatize to new types of organisms. The human contagion phase therefore consisted in the virus reacting violently to the new defenses it encountered. Statistically, the fatal effects do not benefit a virus which tends to die out by decreasing the number of carriers. These are therefore most benign forms which will ultimately tend to survive, continuing to spread via subjects whose health they do not affect too much. We could therefore progress gradually, according to scientists towards less strong forms of the coronavirus, a new flu in a way.
Settling in over time
For the moment, these hypotheses cannot be verified because the figures are still progressing and the modes of contagion are evolving, but many scientists are starting to attach more and more importance to them. So Marc Lipsitch, a prominent epidemiologist at Harvard University, he said a few days ago: “This virus will probably accompany us beyond this season and perhaps this year, by naturally finding favorable groups”. If this is the In this case, research should not focus on eradicating the disease but on how to alleviate the symptoms. The world would then learn to live with this new virus, as it has done in the past. flu or AIDS.
To be sure to receive our newsletter for FREE every day (Monday to Friday)
Or follow us on Facebook
–
