The pandemic will continue all over the world until the last case is seen and recovered

We are in a period where we face a pandemic all around the world, and the spreading speed of the virus increases day by day. Looking at the dynamics of the pandemic and considering that one person can infect 3 others, I can say that its progress is normal. This pandemic will continue all over the world until the last case is seen and recovered. As with all pandemics occurred until now, this will also end sooner or later. We have three scenarios for this. The worst one is to put aside all the measures that we take and continue our usual lives. Under these circumstances, more than half of the world population will be infected after a while, develop immunity and the virus cannot find someone to infect, hence the pandemic ends. This will last for almost three months, but the equipment in the hospitals won’t be sufficient, the health system won’t be able to handle this and the system will fail in this period. But right now, we need to have optimum use of the health system. On the other hand, lots of people will lose their lives in this scenario. Therefore, we cannot leave the disease on its own.

Another way is to find the vaccine… In other words; the vaccine will be found, start to be applied, the whole world will develop immunity, the virus cannot find any one to infect, won’t be transmitted and the pandemic will end. Of course, now we cannot guarantee that an effective vaccine will be found. Let’s say that the research for the vaccine started; this will continue for almost a year, and then a few months more will be needed to produce in enough quantities. Therefore, we don’t know if the vaccine will be found, how long the research will continue or if it will be successful. There is no guarantee for this.

The third and the best scenario is the mutation of the virus. A mutated virus loses its infectiousness and the pandemic ends. For example, SARS mutated in about eight months and ended on its own. It is difficult to estimate whether it will be the same for the coronavirus, or when it will be. Because the mutation occurs in nature by itself. But it is not something that won’t happen. It happened in swine flu, and in SARS.

Country leaders take several measures to end the pandemic and give us recommendations. What we should do now is not to let our guard down, pay attention to social isolation and personal hygiene. These measures are vital.

Pediatric Infectious Diseases Specialist Prof. Dr. Mehmet Ceyhan