Will We Ever Eradicate COVID-19? - Quanta Magazine

While there is much we still don’t know about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, we have learned enough to answer some of these questions. .

Advocates of a campaign to eradicate the virus cite the high costs of an endemic SARS-CoV-2 virus, both in terms of health and as an ongoing economic issue.

To date, over 250 million infections have been confirmed globally with over 5 million deaths, and absent any intervention, economists have estimated that COVID-19 infections would cost the U.S?

Even with the vaccines, COVID-19 will still be exceedingly costly in the coming years on multiple fronts.  .

One medical journal has suggested that eradication of SARS-CoV-2 should not be ruled out, and that it could be about as challenging as our ongoing polio eradication efforts. .

The epidemiology of the virus makes eradication unlikely.

What’s the difference between eradication, extinction and elimination of a virus.

While eradication refers to the global extermination of the virus (except in labs), elimination refers to a more limited form of control, where new infections within particular countries are reduced to zero.

What makes COVID-19 so resistant to eradication.

To find them, we would need to build up extensive surveillance programs (as we’ve done in the campaign to eradicate polio), examining human cases as well as samples of sewage to determine if the virus is circulating in a community.

Unlike smallpox, which had very distinct symptoms that could readily distinguish it from other rash-causing viruses, COVID-19 causes symptoms that can be similar in presentation to those of influenza and other respiratory viruses, meaning rapid, accurate, widespread and affordable testing are critical to confirm cases.   .

Smallpox, measles and polio are all caused by human-specific viruses; they do not infect other animals, and so they’re easier targets for eradication.

These animal infections complicate eradication efforts, because there will always be sources of the virus that could reintroduce it into humans.

Vaccines have been a great method of interrupting transmission, but the current vaccines for COVID-19 simply aren’t as effective as vaccines for smallpox, measles and polio?

COVID-19 vaccines reduce transmission if vaccinated individuals are infected, but they do not completely eliminate it.

The viruses that cause measles, smallpox and polio have less genetic diversity, so variants can generally be neutralized by vaccine-induced immunity.

Vaccination for polio, smallpox and measles results in long-term, potentially lifelong, immunity.

Elimination of infections — reduction to zero within defined geographic areas — may be possible, but even that would require many years of sustained work

Elimination would be easier if we had second-generation vaccines that could provide long-term immunity and better protection from “breakthrough” infections, but it’s unclear if any coronavirus vaccine can do this, given that even infection does not.