Posted on 01/04/2022 6:46:02 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Historically, most pandemics last between 2 and a half to 3 and a half years.
Over time, pandemic viruses typically mutate and evolve into an endemic disease that circulates at lower, more manageable levels.
This was the case with the influenza strain behind the 1918 flu pandemic and some virologists hope this may be happening with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Early reports suggest that the Omicron variant may cause milder infections, potentially due to its unique collection of mutations along with the buildup of immunity across the globe.
Still, it’s too early to know for certain how the COVID-19 pandemic will play out.
While experts generally believe viruses often mutate to become less dangerous, it’s not a 100 percent guarantee this is currently happening with the coronavirus.
Furthermore, 2021 is nothing like 1918, and the vaccines, global travel, data, and therapeutics we now have access to will significantly influence the trajectory of this pandemic.
“Since COVID-19 infections have a high number of asymptomatic transmitters, we may not fully understand how societal and environmental pressures — masks, distancing, remote working, etc. — on the virus will allow it to evolve,” said Rodney E. Rohde, PhD, a virologist and professor of clinical laboratory science at Texas State University.
Within a few years, the influenza strain behind the 1918 pandemic became less life threatening.
Dr. Keith Armitage, a professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Case Western Reserve University, says this is likely due to a combination of herd immunity and the virus mutating to produce a less severe illness.
The 1918 influenza strain never disappeared, rather it continued to mutate and a version of it continues to circulate to this day.
“If you think about the way viruses behave, biologically, their reason for living is to replicate and spread, and there’s really no advantage for the virus to kill the host,” said Armitage.
What a virus wants to do is infect a host and be contagious so it can infect another host and it can continue to spread.
As part of this process, respiratory viruses often mutate and become less virulent and therefore less of a serious health issue.
“The 1918 influenza virus eventually mutated to the point of not having a high number of deaths — again, eventually over 3 years or so. We may very well be witnessing this process with ongoing variants of SARS-CoV-2,” said Rohde, noting that there is too much uncertainty to know if this is definitely the case.
We have significantly more data about the COVID-19 pandemic than we do about the 1918 influenza pandemic.
We also have more tools to combat the coronavirus than people did back in 1918 including data about who is most at risk from COVID-19 along with vaccines and therapeutics.
But that data is ongoing and rapidly changing, said Rohde.
With new variants come new questions about where the pandemic is headed, and whether or not we will need annual boosters or modified vaccines.
“The hope is, that if the pandemic doesn’t go away, we will get new variants that are highly contagious but don’t produce much of a clinical illness,” said Armitage.
And between those mutations, less virulent strains, natural immunity, and vaccine-induced immunity, we’ll eventually get out of this.
Whether that is with Omicron or new variants we have yet to meet remains unclear.
“We’d all like it to be sooner rather than later, of course,” Armitage said.
Historically, most pandemics end within 2 to 3 years as the virus mutates into a less virulent pathogen and the population builds up immunity. This is what happened to the influenza strain behind the 1918 flu pandemic, and what many virologists hope will happen with the coronavirus — whether that happens with Omicron, a variant that appears to cause milder infections, or another future variant is unknown.
We will know (Be told) after the 2022 elections. Count on it.
One of the first things I did when this started was to go back and read about the Spanish Flu.
The footprint is similar—although SF killed a lot of younger people. But...there were a lot of younger people shoved together in horrible conditions, so the spread was faster and the treatment was pretty much non-existent.
What I DID learn that was interesting was how these viruses reproduce, mutate, and spread.
The fact that people in the Health Field in Government said they “did not see the variants coming” tells me they missed the course in pandemics in college and med school. Because that’s how these things work. Its how they have always worked.
I recall getting into an argument with someone here who was telling me they had never been exposed to the “Spanish Flu” and could not possibly have the antibodies to it in her system. I asked if she was breast fed as an infant...because if she was, she got them from her mom. Along with thousands of others that her mom passed to her.
The human body is an amazing thing.
We should try to make sure our health care folks understand, as best they can, how its supposed to work.
I wouldn’t say it always works that way. We have highly dangerous (this disease is a comparative joke) viruses that don’t spread so well. They kill the host. They have not seemed to mutate to less dangerous. Even Avian Flu is quite dangerous variant of influenza but how does that work? Is it too much of a strain of a strain? Ebola hasn’t changed its danger quotient, either.
What I never find in these analyses of previous epidemics is how the influence of monetary rewards is keeping the current pandemic ‘in play’.. or the suppression of other drugs that can destroy the virus..or the total blackout of information that can help defeat the pandemic.
Beside the point here, but Iwill mention again, the US trend from the Spanish Flu means that if COVID is really as bad, it minimum will kill 1.5 million by spring this year.
The Spanish Flu went about 2 solid years with several waves. Last wave about 2 years from first, then it mostly all seemed to go away.
These are MINIMAL estimates. The estimates go much higher than this equivalent.
One of the problems...Soldiers were bringing it back home in waves.
Well yes, that is another factor.
Mentioned here but ignored as a compounding factor for today, is the “travel”. We have vastly more travel than back in 1919. Not only technology that makes it easy, but so many different cultures in our own society who insist on going back to their hellholes (I’ve complained of this long before SARS2…realized it between my new work and sons school) regularly. Stuff today spreads more easily simply because people travel more and bring disease with them.
Good summary. Many thanks for posting. Cheers!
Actually they think it generated in KS and was taken to Europe, then just brought back as well. And it wasn’t just soldiers that suffered as most of the epidemic was after the war. (“Young people together in horrible conditions”….relatively briefly.)
The overall trajectory is to start out as a cat 5 hurricane and end as a rainshower. We are somewhere in between . Hopefully later in the year or by the year end we will be in the rain shower phase. South Africa is saying the worst of Omicron is already behind them. But a new variant has now emerged in France, originating out of Cameroon, containing 42(?) mutations. I doubt it will be more dangerous than Omicron but we will see.
Too much aspirin use
What a virus wants to do is infect a host and be contagious so it can infect another host and it can continue to spread.
So sick of this weird pagan idea of virus-as-peer. Viruses are not sentient beings. They do not think, make plans or make choices.
RE: So sick of this weird pagan idea of virus-as-peer. Viruses are not sentient beings.
OK, maybe you can help reword the sentence to make the virus less sentient. We all know what the word “wants to” mean and we associate it with the nature of viruses, not sentience.
Covid will burn itself out like the Spanish flu did.
So 3 1/2 years, just long enough to invoke some more ballot fraud legislation for 2022.
Covid has mutated millions of times.
Covid is a virus that makes billions of copies every day. It is prolific. But in terms of making good copies, the mechanics are bad. A large percent of covid virus reproduction is ineffective and / or the mutations do not “fit the key” of cells.
The key to a mutation is that it is very effective in transmission, but not lethal enough to kill the host. Ebola doesn’t spread because it kills at such a high rate. It never gets a chance to get out of isolation.
Omicron is very infectious, but it won’t kill. That’s why it will end up ripping through the population quickly and will continue to mutate.
Every once in a while, in Nature, a mistake in reproduction, will hit a home run. But it is not often. And when you consider how much they mutate, it’s a one in trillions of cells. It really is hitting the “virus jackpot.”
Unless of course you use CRISPR.
NOTHING!!! this group knows ALL the answers, just ask them... until they change their mind and flip-flop again that is
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