Covid ‘will become weaker and eventually be a common cold’

Covid ‘will become weaker and eventually be a common cold’, says vaccine scientist.

Leading scientists are suggesting that given time Covid 19 could eventually become more like the viruses which cause the common cold each winter.

Speaking to the Royal Society of Medicine Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert explained how viruses tend to get weaker with time.

Gilbert said: ‘We normally see that viruses become less virulent as they circulate more easily and there is no reason to think we will have a more virulent version of Sars-CoV-2. We tend to see slow genetic drift of the virus and there will be gradual immunity developing in the population as there is to all the other seasonal coronaviruses.’

She added: ‘We already live with four different human coronaviruses that we don’t really ever think about very much and eventually Sars-CoV-2 will become one of those. It’s just a question of how long it’s going to take to get there and what measures we’re going to have to take to manage it in the meantime.’

Oxford University’s Professor Sir John Bell expects that Covid will appear more like a common cold next year in spring.

Speaking to Times Radio Sir John said: ‘If you look at the trajectory we’re on, we’re a lot better off than we were six months ago.

‘So, the pressure on the NHS is largely abated. If you look at the deaths from Covid, they tend to be very elderly people, and it’s not entirely clear it was Covid that caused all those deaths. So, I think we’re over the worst of it now.

‘And I think what will happen is, there will be quite a lot of background exposure to Delta (variant), we can see the case numbers are quite high, that particularly in people who’ve had two vaccines if they get a bit of breakthrough symptomatology, or not even symptomatology – if they just are asymptomatically infected, that will add to our immunity substantially, so I think we’re headed for the position Sarah describes probably by next spring would be my view.

He added: ‘We have to get over the winter to get there but I think it should be fine.’

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