Experts dispute reports that coronavirus is becoming less lethal

Has the novel coronavirus in Italy changed in some significant way? That was the suggestion of a top doctor in northern Italy who reports that patients to his hospital have been showing up with lower levels of the virus in their upper respiratory tracts compared with those two months ago.

Alberto Zangrillo, head of San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, roiled the global public health community on Sunday when he told RAI, the national TV station, that “the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” with patients showing minute amounts of virus in nasal swabs. Zangrillo theorized in a follow-up interview with The Washington Post that something different may be occurring “in the interaction between the virus and the human airway receptors.”

He added, “We cannot demonstrate that the virus has mutated, but we cannot ignore that our clinical findings have dramatically improved.”

The comments, which received widespread attention following a Reuters report, prompted vigorous pushback from Michael Ryan, a top official with the World Health Organization, who said Monday during an online news conference that “we need to be exceptionally careful not to create a sense that all of a sudden the virus by its own volition has now decided to be less pathogenic. That is not the case at all.”

The consensus among other experts interviewed Monday is that the clinical findings in Italy likely do not reflect any change in the virus itself.