British cancer doctor Prof Karol Sikora recently claimed that the current COVID-19 pandemic wouldburn itself out.
Extend this to the worlds population and the virus eradicates itself.
But the idea that letting the virus run wild would protect us is unlikely to be valid.
The antibody results coming in suggest that only a small proportion of people have been infected by SARS-CoV-2.
This means that we are far away from achieving herd immunity.
It also suggests that the virus does indeed have the relatively high fatality rate thatweve estimated.
It would be safer to imagine a future where we can live side by side with SARS-CoV-2.
Yet the virus that caused the original SARS disease SARS-CoV-1 no longer haunts us.
What can its disappearance tell us about the likelihood of living in a world without SARS-CoV-2?
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Why the original SARS disappeared
It was evident by early 2004 that the SARS outbreakhad ended.
Although it mostly affected east Asian countries, by its end SARS had spread worldwide.
In the midst of the turmoil, there were fears that SARS could become a serious pandemic.
In its final days, the outbreakbounced between humans and animals in wet markets across China.
Why did the original SARS epidemic come to end?
Well, SARS-CoV-1 did not burn itself out.
Rather, the outbreak was largely brought under control by simple public health measures.
Nearly everybody on the planet would remain susceptible to SARS in the decades following its disappearance.
But we also knew thatvery similar viruses continued to exist in bats.
Its possible that a very closely related SARS-like virus could emerge in the not-too-distant future.
Of course, this is what happened in late 2019, when SARS-CoV-2 jumped into humans.
While this new human coronavirus is distinct from the original SARS virus, it is related.
An additional and critical concern is that SARS-CoV-2 is efficiently spreadbefore people get sick.
This makes traditional symptomatic-based public health restrictions, which worked well for SARS, largely incapable of containing COVID-19.
