The World Health Organization (WHO) experts cautioned the public that even when the Covid-19 pandemic has been very severe, it is “not necessarily the big one,” adding that the world should learn to live with coronavirus, according to an official release.

According to Professor David Heymann, the chair of the WHO’s strategic and technical advisory group for infectious hazards, the fate of COVID-19 is to become endemic.

The statement comes at a time when the developed countries have started rolling out the Covid-19 vaccines.

“The world has hoped for herd immunity, that somehow transmission would be decreased if enough persons were immune,” he said during the WHO’s last media briefing for 2020.

Heymann added: “It appears the destiny of SARS-CoV-2 [Covid-19] is to become endemic, as have four other human coronaviruses, and that it will continue to mutate as it reproduces in human cells, especially in areas of more intense admission. Fortunately, we have tools to save lives, and these in combination with good public health will permit us to learn to live with Covid-19.”

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The head of the WHO emergencies program, Dr Mark Ryan, said: “The likely scenario is the virus will become another endemic virus that will remain somewhat of a threat, but a very low-level threat in the context of an effective global vaccination program.”

He added: “It remains to be seen how well the vaccines are taken up, how close we get to a coverage level that might allow us the opportunity to go for elimination. The existence of a vaccine, even at high efficacy, is no guarantee of eliminating or eradicating an infectious disease. That is a very high bar for us to be able to get over.”

Virus eradication

Ryan further said that the main aim of the vaccine is to protect the vulnerable from the virus. After this, the world should strive to eradicate the virus completely. Ryan added: “This pandemic has been very severe. It has affected every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one.”

“This is a wake-up call. We are learning, now, how to do things better: science, logistics, training and governance, how to communicate better. But the planet is fragile,” Ryan further said.

“We live in an increasingly complex global society. These threats will continue. If there is one thing we need to take from this pandemic, with all of the tragedy and loss, is we need to get our act together. We need to honour those we’ve lost by getting better at what we do every day,” WHO chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan during the briefing.

While the WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the end of 2020 is a time to reflect on the toll the pandemic had taken and also look at the progress we all have made.

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