These are the 6 ways the coronavirus pandemic could end

“Once it was established this virus was spreading efficiently between people... we immediately should’ve realized that this was not going to be containable,” says Amesh Adalja at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security to Vox . Follow Changing America on Facebook and Twitter to stay up-to-the-second on the latest news and smartest insights. “One scenario is that we go through a pandemic,” says epidemiologist Stephen Morse of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health to STAT . COVID-19 may be a case where it “could very well become another seasonal pathogen that causes pneumonia,” says infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota to STAT. Without new vaccines or drugs, we can slow the spread by engaging in social distancing, which many governments have already mandated or strongly recommended. One estimate by epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University says that 40 to 70 percent of people around the world may be infected by SARS-CoV-2 within the coming year, as reported by the Atlantic . Click now to follow Changing America on Facebook and Twitter and stay up-to-the-second on the latest news and smartest insights. However, if we successfully slow the spread, we can use a vaccine to prevent the coronavirus from becoming endemic by protecting the part of the population who hasn’t been exposed to it. The clinical trial process includes multiple stages to ensure safety and to validate that the drug is effective. If they are helpful, they may lower the severity of illness in people who are infected, consequently decreasing the burden on health systems.