Italian Doctor Says Coronavirus Is Less Potent and May Disappear Without Vaccine

An Italian doctor believes the coronavirus has weakened and may go away on its own, without the help of a vaccine.

According to Dr. Matteo Bassetti, head of the San Martino infectious disease clinic, the virus is less dangerous and potent, which may be due to genetic mutation, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

“The clinical impression I have is that the virus is changing in severity,” Bassetti said.

“In March and early April, the patterns were completely different. People were coming to the emergency department with a very difficult to manage illness, and they needed oxygen and ventilation, some developed pneumonia.”

However, this month, “the picture has completely changed in terms of patterns… It was like an aggressive tiger in March and April, but now it’s like a wild cat,” Bassetti told the outlet. “Even elderly patients, aged 80 or 90, are now sitting up in bed and they are breathing without help. The same patients would have died in two or three days before.”

According to the doctor, one reason the virus may be less powerful is because it mutated due to social distancing. “I think the virus has mutated because our immune system reacts to the virus, and we have a lower viral load now due to the lockdown, mask-wearing, social distancing,” he said. “We still have to demonstrate why it’s different now.” He also believes since fewer people are contracting the virus, it could die out before researchers find a vaccine.

Everyone does not agree with this theory.

“I don’t expect it to die out that quickly,” Dr. Bharat Pankhania, an expert and professor at the UK’s University of Exeter Medical School, said, adding that it could take years before we see it disappear.

“It will if it has no one to infect. If we have a successful vaccine, then we’ll be able to do what we did with smallpox. But because it’s so infectious and widespread, it won’t go away for a very long time.”