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More People Are Getting Infected With Covid-19, but Fewer Ventilators Are Needed. Why?
Five possible explanations, with lots of unknowns and caveats
As of June 22, the world had 3.75 million active Covid-19 cases. Among those, around 2% were serious or critical, and an estimated 1.5% of those were being treated with ventilators.
Let’s rewind three months to March 22, 2020. At that time, there were 224,588 active cases around the world, 5% of which were reported to be serious or critical. More people are infected now, but a lower percentage of them need ventilation treatment. Why is that? There are a few possible explanations. What follows are the five most commonly debated suggestions.
1. The virus is gradually becoming less lethal.
This hypothesis was raised in the early days of the outbreak by a minority of experts. This view is still, to this day, held by few and stands in contrast to the common convention that the virus is not mutating, at least not in a meaningful way.
Professor Matteo Bassetti, head of the infectious diseases clinic at Italy’s Policlinico San Martino Hospital, has said that “coronavirus had downgraded from a tiger to a wild cat.” Bassetti says that in the last month (compared with March and…
