Not sure about 'by the end of the year' but agree with the basic sentiment. The key of course is whether or not the virus can mutate to avoid the immunity provided by antibodies to the current strain.
What I've been reading so far, the genetic analysis of its mutations[1] has not suggested that it will.
That isn't to say that it won't evolve into something more like the common cold, just that the features that make it SARS appear to me to be locked into specific genetic elements of the current virus (and MERS and SARS-Covid-1).
If this trend continues, then the vaccines developed will provide immunity for people and prevent further widespread outbreaks. Covid-19 will become "just like the flu" in that you get a shot for it (possibly only 1 or 2), and your chances of catching it become low enough that even if you are exposed to someone with it, your immune system will kill it.
At which point the world goes back pretty much to exactly the way it was before, except that we have experienced a worldwide pandemic in "living memory" and there will be a crap ton of sovereign debt which is going to drag on the various economies of the world for a decade at least.
Things to watch for are the results of vaccine trials, and follow the genetic tracking with respect to the virus' use of its 'spike' to infect cells. Good results in vaccines and no change in the virus without also making it just a regular cold virus, and the world goes on.
What I've been reading so far, the genetic analysis of its mutations[1] has not suggested that it will.
That isn't to say that it won't evolve into something more like the common cold, just that the features that make it SARS appear to me to be locked into specific genetic elements of the current virus (and MERS and SARS-Covid-1).
If this trend continues, then the vaccines developed will provide immunity for people and prevent further widespread outbreaks. Covid-19 will become "just like the flu" in that you get a shot for it (possibly only 1 or 2), and your chances of catching it become low enough that even if you are exposed to someone with it, your immune system will kill it.
At which point the world goes back pretty much to exactly the way it was before, except that we have experienced a worldwide pandemic in "living memory" and there will be a crap ton of sovereign debt which is going to drag on the various economies of the world for a decade at least.
Things to watch for are the results of vaccine trials, and follow the genetic tracking with respect to the virus' use of its 'spike' to infect cells. Good results in vaccines and no change in the virus without also making it just a regular cold virus, and the world goes on.
[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9241