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The Coronavirus Is Never Going Away - The Atlantic
just like the flu
The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has sickened more than 16.5 million people across six continents. It is raging in countries that never contained the virus. It is resurging in many of the ones that did. If there was ever a time when this coronavirus could be contained, it has probably passed. One outcome is now looking almost certain: This virus is never going away.
The coronavirus is simply too widespread and too transmissible. The most likely scenario, experts say, is that the pandemic ends at some point—because enough people have been either infected or vaccinated—but the virus continues to circulate in lower levels around the globe. Cases will wax and wane over time.
I wonder what it must have been like when human beings were first struck by the common cold. I wonder if it was something akin to a sudden plague, and how many people died from it before most of swathes humanity developed an immunity to the virus and it later became a relatively trifling seasonal malady.