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It will be very difficult to do this, but it all depends on us.
July 15 2020
Whether there will be a second wave of coronavirus is one of the most discussed topics today. After all, the second half of this unprecedented 2020 has come. Is the pandemic a thing of the past? Wday.ru discussed this important issue with the virologist Anatoly Altstein.
Virologist, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Chief Researcher of the N. Gamaleya Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology
– I believe that the second wave is inevitable, because the immune layer in our population is still small. She especially has nowhere to take, and the virus is contagious, and there is a lot of it. During the summer, he may or may not fall. In the fall, when humid, damp weather sets in, conducive to colds, it is likely to play out again. This is almost inevitable: a large number of infectious viruses and many sensitive people. Cold weather predisposes a person to accept this virus. In these conditions, immunity decreases, people sit more indoors and have a greater chance of becoming infected. The weather itself does not have a big effect on the virus, but on a person it is significant.
It is also difficult for our population to enforce restrictions. Many do not believe in the virus at all, and their souls are calm. This is usually for a large population in which people behave differently and believe in different things. If people followed all the precautions, then perhaps there would not have been a second wave.
On measures to protect against the virus …
– No special measures can be taken to protect one hundred percent from the virus. Only if you completely isolate yourself in your apartment so that the food will be delivered to you. Masks and gloves in the subway, shops partially protect, but not completely.
The virus will probably stay with us forever. I only hope that it will reduce its virulence (the degree of the virus’s ability to cause disease or death of the body) and the lethality will not be as high as in this epidemic, when in some countries it reached 10-15% of the number of cases. Pathogenicity will decrease and will be at the influenza level of 0,1%.
About 0,3% of the population has been ill with us. However, antibody studies show that perhaps 15% of our people have had it, and this has led to the development of population immunity. But this is also an insufficient figure to assert that our population is mostly immune. When it is 50%, then we can talk about protection.