Head of the Department of the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology named after Gamaleya of the Ministry of Health of Russia Alexander Butenko named two scenarios for the end of the coronavirus pandemic in an interview with Izvestia.
According to him, the end of the pandemic will depend on the immune layer of the population and the mutagenicity of the virus. He noted that the infection has a high ability to mutate, but such processes do not always lead to an increase in the pathogenicity of the virus. He explained that sometimes mutations work to weaken the virus.
“Science knows cases of deprivation of the properties of the pathogenicity of a virus as a result of mutations. It is possible that COVID-19 will follow the same scenario, ”Butenko stressed.
The specialist added that the second possible scenario for the end of the coronavirus pandemic is that the virus will have no place to live. The more people survive COVID-19 or get vaccinated, the less room for the infection to reproduce and mutate.
Earlier, virologist Alexander Semenov said that the symptoms of the omicron strain are fundamentally no different from the standard coronavirus infection. Fever, cough, and headache are common in this strain as in others. At the same time, the virologist noted that from the omicron “neither the horns nor the tail grows.”
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