Infectious disease doctor says virus weakens over time; colleagues disagree

A infectious disease specialist in Italy claims that the coronavirus is losing its strength and might even die out before a vaccine is developed, though his colleagues vehemently disagree with him and there does not appear to be medical proof to support his argument.

“It was like an aggressive tiger in March and April, but now it’s like a wild cat,” the New York Daily news quotes Professor Matteo Bassetti, the chief of infectious diseases at San Martino General Hospital in Genoa, Italy, as saying.

He says that contrary to earlier in the year, when seriously ill patients in Italy were dying in higher numbers, now more of them with severe symptoms are managing to recover.

“Even elderly patients, aged 80 or 90, are now sitting up in bed and they are breathing without help. The same patients would have died in two or three days, before.”