Countries around the world are witnessing the 3rd and 4th wave of COVID-19 led by the Omicron variant, although being a milder variant in terms of severity, scientists have hinted that the COVID is not going away anytime soon and there’s a possibility of much more deadly variant as the virus slowly mutates.
According to a report by India Times, the ‘mildness’ of Omicron has also resulted in a large section of the population believing that we may have reached the end of the pandemic and that COVID-19 has lost its sting.
COVID-19 is not going anytime soon from this Planet: Scientist
However, the studies say the opposite as scientists have warned that “this is not the case and that COVID-19 is not going away any time soon from the face of the planet.”
Potential of more deadly variant in future
While speaking to the media, Leonardo Martinez, an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist at Boston University, said “the faster Omicron spreads, the more opportunities there are for mutation, potentially leading to more deadly variants.”
No reason for virus to become less lethal: Dr Ray
Dr Stuart Campbell Ray, an Infectious Disease expert at Johns Hopkins University stated that “people have wondered whether the virus will evolve to mildness. But there’s no particular reason for it to do so, I don’t think we can be confident that the virus will become less lethal over time.”
It is a evolutionary mistake: Prof Gupta
Meanwhile, Ravindra Gupta, Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases (CITIID), had also said that Omicron was an “evolutionary mistake”.
Speaking to PTI, Prof. Gupta said “there is this assumption that viruses become more benign over time but that’s not what’s happening here because those are long-term evolutionary trends.”
“There is no reason for COVID to become milder, especially in the era of vaccination with plenty of susceptible hosts. So I think it’s an evolutionary mistake. It’s not something intentional that the virus is trying to do to change its biology, he added.”
