Coronavirus: the pandemic is now one year old, so when will it be over?
- Vaccinations are well under way around the world and will subdue the spread but scientists and doctors say the virus may be here to stay in some form
- WHO’s goal to end the acute phase of the pandemic by late 2021 depends on poor nations having fair access to vaccines
“We’re not headed for a Covid-free future,” said Jodie McVernon, director of epidemiology at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne. “Really, what we are aspiring vaccines to do for us is hasten the transition [away] from this being a catastrophic, overwhelming epidemic disease with high death rates,” she said.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the pandemic call on the disease 12 months ago when 118,000 people had been reported infected in 114 countries. He said: “All countries can still change the course of this pandemic”.
Governments chose different methods to protect their populations, and yet the disease has caused more than 2.6 million deaths, the infection of 117 million people and has driven the global economy into the biggest slump in nearly a century.