“BUT- let’s not forget, that viruses TEND TO burn themselves out pretty rapidly once they hit peak and begin declining in numbers of new cases”
I have no idea what that means. Viruses “burn” themselves out??? How?
The only possible way viruses cease to be a problem is if they...
1. run out of “infectable” people
or
2. a vaccine exterminates or neutralizes them
or
3. carriers are so perfectly isolated that the main population is unaffected
Viruses are shed proteins that continuously mutate, so they eventually mutate to the point where they are no longer infectious.
I think we may be looking at door #3.
Viruses “attenuate”. Remember Pastuer and Rabies? It’s a natural thing viruses do. They become less virulent with each passage.
the epidemic burns itself out
both 1 and 2 in your scenario occur- the virus itself doesn’t burn out- i shouldn’t have put it that way- the pandemic, or epidemic- or flu threat or whatever- dwindles until no more folks are getting infected- most get vaccinated against it- and everyone in that particular area haS either had it, or been vaccinated against it- the virus stops infecting people in that area- it moves on- until the same thing happens in the whole country- then worldwide- then it morphs- and starts all over again the next ‘season’
What i was getting at is that we tend to get a handle on flues and viruses, vaccinate people, and the viruses have noone left to infect so it, the pandemic or flu episodes, ‘burns out’ in that area- so usually it doesn’t turn into pandemics of the massive type seen with the Spanish flu- We’ve had a couple of bad flues- SARS, Bird Flu, Swine Flu etc that they thought were gonna wreak havoc- but didn’t- as the flu was brought under control- and the threat ‘burned out’ eventually world wide-