{"id":324454,"date":"2020-07-05T21:12:07","date_gmt":"2020-07-05T21:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=324454"},"modified":"2020-07-05T21:12:07","modified_gmt":"2020-07-05T21:12:07","slug":"has-covid-19-downgraded-from-tiger-to-wild-cat-to-die-out-without-a-vaccine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/has-covid-19-downgraded-from-tiger-to-wild-cat-to-die-out-without-a-vaccine\/","title":{"rendered":"Has Covid-19 downgraded from \u201ctiger to wild cat\u201d to die out without a vaccine?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Coronavirus has downgraded from a \u201ctiger to a wild cat\u201d and could die out on its own without a vaccine, an infectious diseases specialist has claimed. Phoebe Southworth quoted Prof Matteo Bassetti, head of the infectious diseases clinic at the Policlinico San Martino hospital in The Telegraph that Covid-19 has been losing its virulence in the last month and patients who would have previously died are now recovering.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe clinical impression I have is that the virus is changing in severity,\u201d said Prof Bassetti. \u201cIn March and early April, the patterns were completely different. People were coming to the emergency department with a very difficult to manage illness and they needed oxygen and ventilation, some developed pneumonia. Now, in the past four weeks, the picture has completely changed in terms of patterns. There could be a lower viral load in the respiratory tract, probably due to a genetic mutation in the virus which has not yet been demonstrated scientifically. It was like an aggressive tiger in March and April but now it\u2019s like a wild cat\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prof Matteo Bassetti in the meanwhile claimed that even elderly patients, aged 80 or 90, are now sitting up in bed and they are breathing without help. The same patients would have died in two or three days before. \u201cI think the virus has mutated because our immune system reacts to the virus and we have a lower viral load now due to the lockdown, mask-wearing, social distancing. Probably it could go away completely without a vaccine. We have fewer and fewer people infected and it could end up with the virus dying out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Prof Karol Sikora, an oncologist and chief medical officer at Rutherford Health, previously said it is likely the British public has more immunity than previously thought and Covid-19 could end up \u201cpetering out by itself.\u201d However, Dr Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School and a former Public Health England consultant, said the idea that Covid-19 would die out is \u201coptimistic in the short term\u201d. \u201cI don\u2019t expect it to die out that quickly,\u201d he said, \u201cit will if it has no one to infect. If we have a successful vaccine then we\u2019ll be able to do what we did with smallpox\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe clinical impression I have is that the virus is changing in severity,\u201d said Prof Bassetti. In March and early April the patterns were completely different. People were coming to the emergency department with a very difficult to manage illness and they needed oxygen and ventilation, some developed pneumonia. Now, in the past four weeks, the picture has completely changed in terms of patterns. There could be a lower viral load in the respiratory tract, probably due to a genetic mutation in the virus which has not yet been demonstrated scientifically. Also, we are now more aware of the disease and able to manage it.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the World Health Organization said that the new coronavirus had not suddenly become less pathogenic following claims by a leading Italian doctor that Covid-19 has lost its potency. At a virtual press briefing, WHO Emergencies Director, Michael Ryan said that \u201cWe need to be exceptionally careful not to create a sense that, all of a sudden, the virus, by its own volition, has now decided to be less pathogenic\u201d. He said, \u201cWhat\u2019s important is that there are measures in place to reduce and to suppress transmission\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coronavirus has downgraded from a \u201ctiger to a wild cat\u201d and could die out on its own without a vaccine, an infectious diseases specialist has claimed. Phoebe Southworth quoted Prof Matteo Bassetti, head of the infectious diseases clinic at the Policlinico San Martino hospital in The Telegraph that Covid-19 has been losing its virulence in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":324458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,2205],"tags":[12750],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324459,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324454\/revisions\/324459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/324458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}