Crypto News: Is Covid getting less deadly?

Hi folks, it's Kristen writing from the road in Edinburgh this week. A reader wonders whether, so long into the pandemic, the deadliness of the virus is waning. But before we get there…

Amylyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. won US regulatory approval for its controversial treatment for ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
Fintech startups are offering financing for fertility services.
The Covid lockdown in Tibet's capital is taking a heavy social toll, with a report detailing a number of recent suicides.

Are we likely to see a reduction in the mortality rate from Covid in future strains? And what is the likelihood of another disease becoming as globally destructive as Covid? Lisa, Australia

In much of the world Covid has receded into the background of daily life, giving the virus at least the veneer of having become less ferocious. But before we dive into the details of this question, it's worth pointing out that while vaccines and an ever-increasing arsenal of treatments have vastly improved the prognosis of a Covid diagnosis since early 2020, many people still die from this virus every single day.

For example, a recent analysis by the Los Angeles Times found that Covid killed nine times more LA county residents than car crashes and five times more than the flu and pneumonia in the early part of 2022.

Now, on to the question at hand.

"I want to believe future strains will cause a milder form of Covid, especially given how many people now have infection- and/or vaccine-related immunity," says Jessica Justman, an infectious-diseases specialist and epidemiologist at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Many people already have a fair amount of protection against the virus should they encounter it. So far, new variants such as omicron have been more contagious but not more deadly.

Covid vaccines have helped greatly reduce deaths from the virus. Photographer: Hannah Beier/Bloomberg

"But," says Justman, "it's also possible that a new variant will arise that can evade existing immunity and cause a more deadly illness."

An entirely new coronavirus could potentially emerge as well, just as Covid did back in 2019. Justman points out that scientists recently discovered a new coronavirus in bats — Khosta-2 — that is able to infect human cells and evade the current Covid vaccines in experiments.

Pandemics, of course, are not new to history. Neither are deadly viruses.

"In terms of infectious diseases, Covid is not the worst illness nature can deliver," says Justman. Tuberculosis, for example, is far more deadly.

What was unique about Covid was how quickly and efficiently it spread. And mutations have helped it stick around, even as vaccines prevent severe cases of the virus.

But what Covid has proven over and over again is that predictions are not guarantees. The virus's spillover from animals to humans was in many ways a chance event. Spillover events are rare. How Covid continues to evolve will also be largely up to chance.

"We all want to know what to expect but predicting the future is tricky," says Justman. "In the meantime, we should continue to strengthen our public-health systems, take advantage of available vaccines and boosters, and prepare for another winter surge." — Kristen V. Brown

The lack of treatment for mental health in the US means many Americans experiencing a psychiatric crisis land in a hospital emergency room, where they can remain for days until a spot opens in a psych ward. This approach doesn't really solve anything. It ties up scarce ER beds while also failing to offer patients any real treatment.

"That's spurred some hospitals to try a new idea: mental health crisis units designed to treat people quickly in a more serene setting, so they can stabilize patients and send them home," writes Bloomberg's John Tozzi.

Everyone wants to be done with Covid. But there's no one milestone that will tell us when the pandemic is truly over, says Wired.

The US Food and Drug Administration is revisiting rules for which foods can be called "healthy," reports STAT.

Scientists are combing through wastewater for heavily mutated Covid variants that could be the next world-changing strain, according to Nature.

Ask us anything — well, anything health-related that is! Each week we're picking a reader question and putting it to our network of experts. So get in touch via AskPrognosis@bloomberg.net.