People tired of a pandemic lasting longer than advertised may need to brace themselves for a troubling prospect, as the head of the EU’s ECDC health agency has warned that Covid-19 is likely to last forever.
“It seems very well adapted to humans, so we have to be prepared for it to stay with us”, Andrea Ammon, head of the Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention, told France’s AFP in an interview on Friday.
In fact, Ammon said it seems more likely that the virus will keep circulating indefinitely than it would disappear. “It wouldn’t be the first virus to be with us forever, so it’s not uncommon for a virus,” she added.
Despite the development of several vaccines to combat Covid-19, the virus can continue to spread, Ammon said. While health officials are confident that the vaccines are effective in preventing people from contracting diseases caused by Covid-19, it will take more time to evaluate how effective they can be in reducing the spread of the virus.
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It is also unclear how effective the vaccines will be in inhibiting new strains of coronavirus. Ammon said Covid-19 could eventually become relatively stable, meaning the same vaccines could be used year after year against it, or it could change significantly enough over time to require vaccination adjustments, such as those are used for seasonal flu every year.
Even as the rate of new infections slows from a spike in December and January, Ammon said governments must continue to impose Covid-19 restrictions. “We are really not out of the woods”, she said. ‘Everyone is fed up with the measures, but if you run a long-distance course …, (you) have to walk the last kilometers.’
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