Experts believe that the coronavirus pandemic is here to stay, at least for the next few years.
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist, told the Financial Times’ Global Boardroom webinar on Wednesday that she believes the outbreak will continue into the first half of the decade.
“I would say in a four to five-year timeframe, we could be looking at controlling this,” she explained.
While it’s hard to determine what would contain the virus as it’s such a new development, she believes a vaccine is the “best way out,” though, there’s lots of uncertainty about safety and production.
Peter Piot, professor of global health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, agreed an effective vaccine is the best course of action but said it would be unlikely that it would eliminate the disease entirely as only smallpox has ever been eradicated.
“We will have to find a way as societies to live with this” adding that society will have to go from lockdowns to other “interventions” in daily life.
Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s emergencies program, echoed Piot’s statement during a briefing at Geneva headquarters stating the COVID-19 “may never go away.”
Much of the success hinges on easing restrictions to reopen the economy.
While people are eager to get back to their normal lives, Ryan believes that it could backfire and lead to disaster.
“This is what we all fear, is a vicious cycle of public health disaster followed by economic disaster followed by public health disaster followed by economic disaster,” he said, adding, “if you reopen in the presence of a high degree of virus transmission, then that transmission may accelerate.”
A predicted second wave could shut down everything that’s been reopened and lead to a “steady rise” of cases and deaths, he warned. This is already being seen in states like Alabama, South Dakota, and Texas that have begun relaxing restrictions, according to former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Tuesday.
Ryan said in order to effectively reopen, countries and regions must have the infrastructure to test and detect cases before they spread. Otherwise, it may take weeks to detect a new outbreak and it’ll be too late.
“We should not be waiting to see if opening of lockdowns has worked by counting the cases in the ICUs or counting the bodies in the morgue. That is not the way to know something has gone wrong,” he said. “The way to know the disease is coming back is to have community-based surveillance, to be testing and to know that the problem is coming back and then be able to adjust your public health measures accordingly.”
The lockdown measures have placed restrictions on daily life, forced many to work from home, closed down schools, limited social gatherings, and enforced social distancing.
In America, another 3 million people filed initial unemployment bringing the total to 36.5 million since mid-March, according to the Labor Department.
Infections have topped 4.3 million people worldwide, with the death toll nearing 300,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
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