Cold viruses mutate regularly, so there is no vaccine, and people get more than one cold per lifetime.
Now if you extend that to SARS, where the disease can be fatal, especially for baby boomers and those older, you can see how it can be a very big problem very quickly.
If I understand correctly, you are concerned about a possibility that what may develop is a continuous SERIES of epidemics of deadly SARS-like "colds". Indeed, that would be terrible.
My question is simply - Why now? With all those viruses undergoing over time a practically infinite number of mutations, how come we had so few truly deadly epidemics? I understand the influence of factors such as travel, the increasing density of populations, but still - the world has been a small place for many generations. If "cold" viruses would have it "in them" to turn deadly, don't you think that such SARS-like epidemics would have already happened in the past?
TIA, and thanks for your contributions. |
