endemic The SARS2 virus might never go away A Nature survey shows many scientists expect the virus that causes COVID-19 to become endemic, but it could pose less danger over time. For much of the past year, life in Western Australia has been coronavirus-free. Friends gathered in pubs; people kissed and hugged their relatives; children went to school without temperature checks or wearing masks. The state maintained this enviable position only by placing heavy restrictions on travel and imposing lockdowns — some regions entered a snap lockdown at the beginning of the year after a security guard at a hotel where visitors were quarantined tested positive for the virus. But the experience in Western Australia has provided a glimpse into a life free from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. If other regions, aided by vaccines, aimed for a similar zero-COVID strategy, then could the world hope to rid itself of the virus? It’s a beautiful dream but most scientists think it’s improbable. In January, Nature asked more than 100 immunologists, infectious-disease researchers and virologists working on the coronavirus whether it could be eradicated. Almost 90% of respondents think that the coronavirus will become endemic — meaning that it will continue to circulate in pockets of the global population for years to come (see 'Endemic future').

transplant US woman died after receiving coronavirus-infected lungs during organ transplant, study reveals A Michigan woman died of Covid-19 last year after getting a double-lung transplant from a donor who turned out to be infected with the virus, according to a medical study describing the first such case in the US. The unnamed organ recipient had chronic obstructive lung disease, while her donor was another woman, who succumbed to a severe brain injury after a car crash, a report in the American Journal of Transplantation said. The surgery took place at the University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan in mid-2020. It went well, but three days later the recipient of the lungs suddenly developed high fever, low blood pressure and heavy breathing. The patient then went into septic shock, prompting medics to test her for Covid-19. The results returned positive, and fluid samples taken from the woman’s lungs revealed the presence of the virus too.