Experts predict the possibility of ending the pandemic in 2022
(Baonghean.vn) - The COVID-19 pandemic will end when community immunity reaches a high level, and the virus's ability to cause disease is reduced to a minimum due to mutation.
 |
| “Trust that these days will pass.” Photo: Reuters |
In an interview with the Russian newspaper Ivestia, virologists said that the emergence of the Omicron strain could be the key to the entire COVID-19 pandemic, if this strain is the mutation that will end the epidemic. According to doctors' predictions, this process could last up to a year.
Specifically, the head of the NF Gamaleya Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Ministry of Health Alexander Butenko said that the end of the pandemic will depend on two factors: the community's immunity and the virus's ability to mutate.
“We see that like other coronaviruses, COVID-19 has a high potential for mutation. The longer the pandemic lasts, the more the virus mutates. But such processes do not always increase the pathogenicity of the virus, sometimes they have the effect of weakening it. Science has known cases where the virus lost its ability to cause disease due to mutations. It is very likely that COVID-19 will follow a similar scenario,” the expert said.
Pavel Volchkov, head of the genetic engineering laboratory at MIPT University, believes that the pandemic will continue next year, but the peak may have passed, so 2022 will be less severe in terms of deaths and infections. According to him, these strains of the virus will continue to mutate, but at the moment the danger lies in not knowing how the virus will evolve when all restrictions in China are lifted.
“There, as you know, they imposed self-isolation at the beginning of the pandemic, so they basically only have vaccine immunity. However, I think the peak of the epidemic has passed, and then the coronavirus activity will gradually decrease. 2022 will still have a lot of COVID-related developments, but not to the extent of 2021.”
