Ending Wuhan's social distancing too soon may spur 'second wave' of COVID-19 in midsummer

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. I would think that a more serious problem is that this is a truly novel virus,

meaning no one on the planet has immunity to it. Until such time as everyone has gotten it and either died or survived, or we've been able to stomp it out by some other means, it's going to be out there. And could come back.

Usually viruses and other pathogens mutate in the direction of less or even non-lethality. I know there's some evidence that this virus is doing the exact opposite, which is scary. Someone needs to explain to it that if it kills off all potential hosts, it dies also.

Interesting factoid about smallpox. For thousands of years it did terrible damage to humans. Killing many, disfiguring vast numbers. In the late 19th century, in two different parts of the planet, a new version arose, vastly less lethal, almost never leaving scars behind, and overall a far more benign disease. If you got the newer, kinder version you were probably going to survive, and now you were also immune to the original one. The original form of smallpox is known as variola major, the newer, less lethal one, as variola minor. Basically, it was on its way to becoming a childhood disease that almost everyone would survive. By the time this happened, however, we did have a way of vaccinating against smallpox, and so eventually eradicated it completely.