Four scenarios on how we might develop immunity to Covid-19

(HYACINTH EMPINADO/STAT)

As the U.S. continues to record more Covid-19 cases and deaths than any other country in the world — upward of 177,000 deaths and 5.7 million cases — experts are beginning to consider what a future with SARS-CoV-2 look like. Despite the bleak present, the scenarios that experts laid out to STAT's Helen Branswell make for a more hopeful future. One expert said that masks are unlikely to be a regular feature two or three years from now, for instance. And at least two of the possible visions that experts could agree on seemed to show a future in which those who have been infected with Covid-19 have some kind of protection against the disease so that a future infection is milder and more manageable. “You will never get as sick as you were the first time,” says coronavirus researcher Vineet Menachery. Read more here.

Here's what else is happening with Covid-19: 

• The big news yesterday came out of Hong Kong, where researchers said they had identified the first individual who had been reinfected with a different variant of the new coronavirus. The individual, a 33-year-old man, contracted the virus back in March, recovered, but seemed to have contracted it again nearly five months later while in Europe. The patient was asymptomatic the second time around, which led experts to caution that news of the reinfection wasn't a reason to panic, and that this was a "textbook example of how immunity should work." 
• The pandemic hasn't been great for mental health, and a new study finds that internet searches for anxiety and panic attacks were up 11% — or an additional 375,000 searches — in the two months since a national emergency was declared in the U.S. in mid-March, compared to similar time frames going back to 2004. Searches stayed at higher-than-usual levels through mid-April, which corresponded to when social distancing measures were first implemented, when the U.S. overtook China in the number of Covid-19 cases, and when U.S. deaths surpassed those in Italy. 
• The latest survey of more than 4,000 nurse practitioners finds that they feel more prepared to deal with Covid-19 now than at the start of the pandemic. About a third said their practice was ready for a surge in Covid-19 cases. At the same time, 46% said testing was limited for eligible patients in their area, which is an improvement since the previous survey of these workers in May, when 69% reported limited testing access.