Top doctor in Italy claims the Coronavirus is weakening.

A woman getting her temperature taken in Punta Ala, Italy. Reuters. 

A top doctor in Italy claims that the Coronavirus is weakening and has become less lethal. Reuters. Dr. Alberto Zangrillo, the head of San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, in the heavily hit Lombardy region, say that the virus essentially doesn't exist in Italy. The individuals who test positive show a much lower viral load compared to earlier in the outbreak. Italy was one of the hardest hit countries in the world and had many deaths, but during May saw fewer new infections and deaths. Another doctor from Northern Italy, Matteo Bassetti who is the head of infectious disease at San Martino Hospital in Genoa agreed, saying that it was clear the disease was not at the strength it was two months ago. However, the Italian government urged caution saying that it was too soon to declare the virus defeated. 

My Comment:

I saw this story and felt I should write it up, if for no other reason people need to hear some good news to start the week. Last week was not a good one to say the least and any bright spots are things we should be highlighting. 

This story makes me cautiously optimistic that we are almost out of the woods when it comes to the Coronavirus. It's clear that we aren't seeing too much of an uptick in cases and it seems like deaths have leveled off and a weakening virus could be the cause. 

Anecdotally, my place of work had a major outbreak with more than 300 people getting sick. However, it seems as though nobody had died so far and a lot of people are already back to work. I was expecting way worse than that but for the most part things seem to be good. Indeed, nobody in my department got sick, unless, as we all suspect, the virus went through our department in March, long before the main outbreak in April. 

So why does the virus appear to be getting weaker? I think part of it is that the virus may have mutated. Though both of the SARS viruses seem to be resistant to mutation, it still happens. And I think a less lethal/damaging strain would spread better than a more lethal one as people who are very sick can only really spread it to their caretakers, while the people with mild or even asymptomatic cases can spread it beyond just their family, doctors and nurses as they can still do some normal activities. This would create evolutionary pressure that would greatly favor the less deadly form, and it looks like the more deadly form my have died out in Italy (and hopefully other places like neck of the woods). 

A more worrying thought is that the virus hasn't change that much at all, just people's behavior. I think it's clear that the amount of virus you are exposed to increases the danger, which is why so many doctors and nurses in China got sick and died. Before we figured out how to properly use ventilators, they were pushing large amounts of virus into the air, giving the doctors and nurses more virus than their body can handle. 

The weather and the lifting of lockdown restrictions might be playing a role as well. As people move outside more often they have a better chance of either catching the mild strain or only getting a few viral particles, giving their immune system a better shot of fighting off the virus. Even something as easy as being able to open a window for a sick person could lesson the viral load and keep people healthier. The downside is that these advantages could go away if the virus isn't gone by fall. As people spend less time outside, the virus may return to it's old lethality.

It's likely that both things have happened, the virus is less deadly now and people's behavior is lessening the effects of the virus. If the virus has mutated to a less deadly form it really could just be a flu or cold for the majority of people who get it so even if it does come back in the fall, most people should be able to deal with it. I sincerely hope that is the case as the world desperately needs some good news now and being able to finally write off the Coronavirus would be a major victory for humanity, even if it was due to nothing more than random mutation.