The next wave

Is the pandemic likely to fizzle out... or get much worse?

- Hannah Devlin

When scientists predicted, months ago, that Covid-19 could be entering an endemic phase, many felt ready for the crisis period of the pandemic to be over. The tantalising suggestion that coronavirus might, at some foreseeable point, be just another seasonal cold felt welcome. But the emergence of the Omicron variant shows this is not guaranteed to be a smooth or quick transition.

Will the virus become milder?

A re curring suggestion is that pathogens evolve, in an undefined period, to be more transmissible and less virulent, bringing virus and host towards a state of benign co existence. If Omicron is spreading so quickly, some wondered, perhaps it will at least be milder. But experts say this expectation has no scientific basis. “Put simply, this has been one of the most baffling misinformation myths peddled during the pandemic,” said Prof Alan McNally, director of the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham. “There is almost no evidence of any human pathogenic virus evolving towards reduced virulence.”