A new study published in the journal Science suggests the novel coronavirus will resemble the common cold in the future — assuming adults are immune.
What’s going on?
The new study suggested the coronavirus has been so deadly because it's unfamiliar to the human immune system, which isn’t trained to fight the virus.
- However, when everyone gets the vaccine or contracts the virus, our immune systems will change, The New York Times reports.
In fact, the study says the virus will become “endemic,” which means it’ll circulate at low levels and rarely cause serious illness.
- “The timing of how long it takes to get to this sort of endemic state depends on how quickly the disease is spreading, and how quickly vaccination is rolled out,” said Jennie Lavine, a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University in Atlanta, who led the study, The New York Times reports. “So really, the name of the game is getting everyone exposed for the first time to the vaccine as quickly as possible.”
When will this happen?
The World Health Organization warned that herd immunity likely won’t happen in 2021 due to the COVID-19 vaccine not being available throughout the world, as I wrote about for the Deseret News.
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, WHO’s chief scientist, said people will need to keep their current habits to keep people safe from the virus until that happens.
- “Because even as vaccines start protecting the most vulnerable, we are not going to achieve any level of population immunity, or herd immunity in 2021 and even if it happens in a couple of pockets in a few countries, it’s not going to protect people across the world,” Swaminathan said, according to The Associated Press.