Will coronavirus really evolve to become less deadly in decades to come?

It was the bacteriologist and comparative pathologist Theobald Smith (1859-1934) who began the narrative of the "law of declining virulence" in the late 19th century

A recent modelling study painted a reassuring picture of a post-pandemic future in which SARS-CoV-2 transitions, over “a few years to a few decades”, from dangerous pathogen to just another common-cold coronavirus. This predicted loss of virulence, the authors stress, is based on a specific idiosyncrasy of the virus, namely that it rarely causes serious disease in children.

Still, many experts agreed that we should not be in the least surprised by the authors’ conclusion, as all viruses “become more transmissible and less pathogenic over time”. After all, the seductive