17 September

Prediction is a mug's game. (I would add I predicted just this here only yesterday.) Every pandemic almost without exception ends when 'no one is quite sure why'. All of the reasons given in this article are the most popular right now, none of them make a lot of sense. Not one person I've seen suggests virulence is the reason. But it's why all pandemics end, usually because lockdowns drive the pathogen to lower virulence. In countries without or with poor lockdowns, the death toll is still high.