Here
“If we slow it so that infections happen over 10 or 12 months instead of over one month, that’s going to make a big difference as far as how many people seriously infected, how many people may end up hospitalized, and how many they end up dying,” Smith says. “We talk about it as ‘flattening the epidemic curve’ — so that it’s not a big, sudden peak in cases, but it’s a more moderate plateau over time.”
“If we slow it so that infections happen over 10 or 12 months instead of over one month, that’s going to make a big difference as far as how many people seriously infected, how many people may end up hospitalized, and how many they end up dying,” Smith says. “We talk about it as ‘flattening the epidemic curve’ — so that it’s not a big, sudden peak in cases, but it’s a more moderate plateau over time.”
But if it is seasonal, it doesn’t mean Covid-19 goes away
after the summer. “It likely isn’t just going to magically go away,”
Grubaugh says. “Next winter might end up being the big winter.”
And if it is seasonal, it’s still dangerous. It would be
like the flu, “except potentially with a higher case fatality rate,”
Rasmussen says. “Which is definitely a problem because the seasonal flu
kills 30,000 to 60,000 Americans every year. And even if it’s the same
case fatality rate of seasonal flu, that still presents a substantial
public health burden.”
How this outbreak could truly end: With a vaccine
To end this outbreak, for good, we’ll need antiviral treatments or a vaccine. Those are currently being produced, and at record speeds.
Researchers are working on new vaccine technologies — like mRNA
vaccines that don’t use viruses at all in their production process — as
well as cutting-edge therapeutic antibodies.
That
said, it still could be a year or more before the safety and efficacy
of these pharmaceuticals are proven. In medicine, effectiveness is not
guaranteed.