The end date of the pandemic will depend on the immune layer of the population and the mutagenicity of the virus. This was announced to Izvestia by the head of the department of the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology. N.F. Gamaleys of the Ministry of Health of Russia Alexander Butenko.
“We see that COVID-19, like other coronaviruses, has a high mutation capacity. The longer the pandemic lasts, the more the virus mutates. But such processes do not always lead to an increase in the pathogenicity of the virus, sometimes they work to weaken it. Science knows cases of deprivation of the properties of the pathogenicity of the virus as a result of mutations. It is possible that COVID-19 will follow the same scenario, ”the expert noted.
The second possible scenario for the end of the pandemic is that the virus will have no place to live, the specialist said. The more people are infected or vaccinated, the less room for the virus to reproduce and mutate. Therefore, the earliest vaccination of the population is so important, the virologist emphasized.
Read more in the exclusive material from Izvestia:
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