Coronavirus weakening, says Italian scientist, no need for vaccine

Social distancing and mask-wearing will lead to the dissipation of the coronavirus, says Bassetti.

By Aaron Sull, World Israel News

As the race to find a coronavirus vaccine heats up, one Italian scientist believes the pandemic will dissipate on its own.

“The clinical impression I have is that the virus is changing in severity,” Dr. Matteo Bassetti, the head of the infectious diseases clinic at the San Martino hospital told the Sunday Telegraph.

“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.”

“But in the past month, the picture has completely changed in terms of patterns,” he said.

As evidence, Bassetti pointed to the growing rate of recoveries in the elderly population whom are deemed to be at the greatest risk.

The reason why the coronavirus has become less potent and will eventually dissipate is because of social distancing and mask-wearing, said Bassetti.

The Italian scientist made similar claims earlier this month and got panned for them by the scientific community.

“I don’t expect it to die out that quickly. 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,” said Dr. Bharat Pankhania, a professor at the UK’s University of Exeter Medical School.

Dr. Oscar MacLean, of the University of Glasgow, said that making such claims without scientific backing is dangerous

“Making these claims on the basis of anecdotal observations from swab tests is dangerous,” MacLean said.

“Without significantly stronger evidence, no one should unnecessarily downplay the danger this highly virulent virus poses, and risk the ongoing society-wide response.”

Dr. Seema Yasmin, an epidemiologist from Stanford University, tweeted that the idea was “bulls***” without specifying further details as to why.

As of Monday, there are 8,970,977 confirmed coronavirus cases and 468,589 deaths worldwide, according to John Hopkins University.

coronavirusdeath tollvaccine