a member of the club of constantly circulating, endemic coronaviruses

2-13-20  According to Adalja (of J Hopkins Med.), the new coronavirus could become a member of the club of constantly circulating, endemic coronaviruses…If the coronavirus does become a permanent fixture among humans, one possibility — let's call it outcome 1a — is that it winds up fluctuating with the seasons the way the flu does. In that case, it could retreat in the summer and return in the fall and winter each year.

"If you look at the trajectory of the virus and how it's spreading in communities, coupled with the fact that we deal with coronaviruses every year during flu and cold season, those factors point to this coronavirus becoming a seasonal virus," Adalja said.

The other four coronaviruses have seasonality too, Adalja added, so cases of the new one "may temper off as we leave spring and enter summer.”…

Coronaviruses, on the whole, are "somewhat less prone to mutation than flu," Morse said.

There is also a chance — let's call it outcome 1b — that the new coronavirus becomes milder and more similar to the other four endemic coronaviruses. But Morse said he'd be surprised if that happened.

"I'm not optimistic enough to think this one is going to do that initially," he said. "It may eventually evolve into that, a circulating illness that resembles the other four, but it will take time.”…

SARS was far less contagious than the new coronavirus. SARS spread primarily in healthcare and hospital settings, and people weren't infectious until they started showing symptoms….

Morse and Adalja both said a vaccine is essential if the world is to definitively control the coronavirus.

A lot of the public-health interventions are a "holding action to keep the virus from spreading in the short term until we get a vaccine," Morse said.

Five leading drug companies — Johnson & Johnson, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline, Moderna, and Gilead Sciences — have announced plans to research and develop treatments for the new virus.

The introduction of a vaccine would create a "sustained firewall" against its further spread, Morse said….

Wuhan, China, and at least 15 other cities have been quarantined as China attempts to halt the spread of the coronavirus. That's about 50 million people on lockdown.

https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-mild-pandemic-how-it-could-end-2020-2