Virologist Ilaria Capua has been upsetting the few certainties that many have had in the last days about an end to confinement.
Capua is best known for her research on influenza viruses, particularly avian influenza, and her efforts promoting open access to genetic information on emerging viruses as part of pre-pandemic preparedness efforts.
At the peak of the H5N1 panzootic, Capua posted the sequence of the first H5N1 African virus on a publicly accessible website (GenBank) rather than contribute the data to a password-protected database maintained in Los Alamos.
The researcher has been leading an international campaign promoting free access to genetic sequences derived from influenza viruses and other viruses with pandemic potential. She is currently a professor at the Institute of Food and Agricultural Science (IFAS), and has a joint appointment with the College of Veterinary Medicine and the College of Public Health and Health Professions at the University of Florida, in the US.
The data of Italy’s Civil Protection show a stable plateau and a drop in ICU patients. But according to Capua, all the predictions made so far about the virus are totally wrong. She told Italan daily Corriere della Sera: “There are many, many things that we do not know and about which many wonder and unfortunately science has long, very long times to arrive at relative certainties. A sea of uncertainty surrounds us and it confuses us. We don’t even know how much the infection has circulated and spread in Italy because the samples are not representative and the procedures are not harmonized. So each estimate is only an estimate and as such intrinsically wrong – you just have to understand how much.”
The virologist speaks of a long coexistence with Covid-19 and with the risk of infection. “We know that physical distancing and personal and public hygiene measures help to flatten the curve and therefore reduce the speed of infection. But a flatter curve does not mean blockage of viral spread, it means reduced viral circulation. So it is clear that the virus will continue to circulate in a visible way – that is, causing clinical cases until herd immunity, natural or vaccination, is established.”
A slowdown as a result of certain drugs could happen: “We know that there are several innovative drugs and therapeutic protocols that allow us to refine the cure, but I don’t think it will soon be commercialized in pharmacies but rather they will be used for hospitalized patients.”
Her comments are finally an important recommendation that radical changes will have to be made to our lives: “It is a matter of adapting what we know about the prevention of Covid-19 to our daily life to avoid ending to hospital ourselves and make sure that our loved ones do not end up there.”
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