The coronavirus pandemic has killed millions of people around the world and infected millions more in what is easily one of the most severe pandemics in modern memory. But according to a new study from the University of Utah, the disease may eventually become nothing more than an annoying seasonal cold.
The study, published in the academic journal Viruses, was done utilizing a mathematical model based on three factors: severity in consecutive infections, population heterogeneity in susceptibility due to age and reduced severity from partial immunity.
Overall, it was meant to show how the lessons learned from the pandemic will impact how the body adapts and changes.
These changes will impact the severity of the disease in the future, rather than the disease itself changing, the study found.
“Over the next decade, the severity of COVID-19 may decrease as populations collectively develop immunity,” Fred Adler, senior author and professor of mathematics and biological sciences, was quoted by NewsHub as saying.
The virus at the center of the ongoing pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, is what causes COVID-19. However, there are numerous other seasonal coronaviruses that exist. But while these illnesses are far less severe, there is evidence to suggest that one of these may have once been severe and helped give rise to the Russian flu pandemic in the late 1800s, Adler said.
Like the Russian flu, SARS-CoV-2 could soon follow a similar path. There are variables the study did not account for, such as variants, but the current data could help properly assess how the pandemic is going to change as time goes on, the study said.
There have been nearly 170 million COVID-19 cases across the world, and the death toll has neared four million, based on official counts. However, the World Health Organization has said these numbers are significantly less than the actual totals, with the real death toll estimated to be as high as eight million people.
In modern history, the Spanish flu, which arose during the last year of WWI in 1918, killed an estimated 17 million to 100 million people worldwide. HIV/AIDS has killed about 35 million people since 1981.
Natan Rothstein contributed to this report.