Hypothesis
- What might happen: A huge portion of the world could become infected
About 40 to 70 percent of all adults around the world would catch the virus within a year. Lipsitch(Harvard epidemiologist) has since revised that estimate downward and with a greater range: He now estimates it’s “plausible” that 20 to 60 percent of adults will catch the disease. (If this comes to pass, while being bad, it’s not apocalyptic:
Most cases of Covid-19. are mild. But it does mean millions could die.)
If the virus cannot be contained, Lipsitch says, the only way for this to get under control is for 50 percent of people to become immune to it.
- The better scenario: Public health measures slow the spread and buy scientists time to work on treatments
The pessimistic view: Because of the lag in testing, the outbreak might be further along — and therefore harder to contain — than authorities currently realize.
However, the development for the vaccine might be take about 1-2 years (it still could be a year or more before the safety and efficacy of these pharmaceuticals are proven).
- The lucky scenario: Covid-19 naturally stops spreading as fast during the summer
For a variety of reasons, some viruses — but not all — become less transmissible as temperatures and humidity rise in the summer months. The viruses themselves may not live as long on surfaces in these conditions. Also, human behavior changes, and we spend less time in confined spaces.
That’s still a big unknown. “Just because some respiratory diseases, like flu, demonstrate seasonality doesn’t mean that Covid-19 will,” Maimuna Majumder, a Harvard epidemiologist, says.