Those days when people began to talk about this outbreak of pneumonia caused by a new coronavirus and which was spreading from China at full speed seem very long ago. At first with skepticism about the potential scope of the epidemic, and later with fear, in March and April 2020 the planet came to a standstill and a large part of the population was involved in home confinement: social distance was, and in part continues being, the only weapon we had to contain the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Since then, research has advanced at full speed, vaccines have been developed in record time, and the information we have today is much greater than a year ago. Which predictions were correct and which were not?
Initial concern
As we have already mentioned, when the first outbreaks of the new disease emerged, there were many doubts on the horizon. There were those who did not give it too much importance, arguing that diseases like the flu caused many more deaths than the newly discovered coronavirus. Others watched with concern the spread of the virus, aware that being new we had no immunity against it and it had a free way to spread.
A year later, however, it appears that the concerns were justified: COVID-19 has already killed more than two and a half million people worldwide. Even with the hope of vaccines on the horizon, there is still a long way to go. New variants have emerged that spread faster, and vaccination campaigns are progressing more slowly than would be desirable.
Containment of the virus
At the beginning of March 2020, the director general of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared that “the threat of the pandemic has become very real, but it would be the first in history to be controlled, we are not at the mercy of this virus ”.
A year later, however, with more than 100 million people around the world already infected with SARS-CoV-2 and a severe global economic recession, it seems clear that containing the pandemic was not as simple as we expected.
Will it be a seasonal disease?
“Some scientists think that the new coronavirus may end up returning every winter, just like the flu. Transmission simulations have been conducted that find that seasonal outbreak patterns depend on people’s immunity to the virus. If immunity decreases every year, similar to what happens with the coronaviruses that cause the common cold, it would be possible to have an annual outbreak , “said the science news magazine in March 2020.
A year later, and in view of the successive waves experienced throughout the world, it seems clear that the heat does not have much effect in reducing the transmission of the virus. Regarding the future, the debate persists, as we do not know how the disease is going to behave. Most experts agree that SARS-CoV-2 will not disappear, but the frequency at which we could face new outbreaks after the pandemic is a matter of debate.
Some believe that SARS-CoV-2 will join the rest of the viruses that we find throughout the year and that it will cause minor illnesses in the future, mainly in children. Others believe that we must prepare for COVID-19 to become a recurring seasonal disease, arguing that herd immunity through vaccination will be very difficult to achieve, and that the increasing spread of variants increases the risk of reinfection.
Virus transmission on surfaces
One of the main doubts at the beginning of the pandemic was the possibility of becoming infected by coming into contact with surfaces that contained SARS-CoV-2. There is increasing evidence that surfaces do not appear to be a relevant route of transmission.
The bad news is that, however, there is increasing evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted by aerosols containing viable viruses generated by the infected person, especially in closed and poorly ventilated spaces.
