Just curious, but what about next year. Will the virus be back after wrecking havoc in the Southern Hemisphere?
“Will the virus be back after wrecking havoc in the Southern Hemisphere?”
The 1918 virus, which I read this one resembles as far as transmissibility goes, simply burned itself out. Everyone who was likely to get it had got it and either died or survived and was immune.
What killed the victims in the 1918 pandemic was not the virus. It was pneumonia or a “cytokine storm.” We have treatments for pneumonia now and for cytokine storms. A cytokine storm is sudden inflammation of critical tissues rendering them non-functional. An inflamed lung won’t work and the victim suffocates. Hormones like prednisone are used to treat that today.
So, in answer to your question, we haven’t seen the last of this disease unless we develop an inoculation. It will continue yearly like the flu.
Because of its incredible (relatively speaking) speed and comparative lethality it would ordinarily burn itself out like the 1918 pandemic. It should not mutate like the ordinary flu because that requires it not kill the victims. However, because of treatments I have no idea what we can expect. Treating HIV, for example, has lead to mutations as people are surviving longer and not regularly taking their medications. (My understanding. I am not a doctor.)