COVID 19 report: Coronavirus will likely remain for years to come even after the development of a fully effective COVID-19 vaccine, Washington Post quoted epidemiology experts as saying. The US daily reported that the virus may eventually become an endemic like HIV, Measles, and chickenpox. 

 

Even after a vaccine is discovered and deployed, the coronavirus will likely remain for decades to come, circulating among the world’s population.

 

The experts have further said that amid all the uncertainty revolving around the contagion, the persistence of the novel coronavirus is one of the few things we can count on about the future. 

There are currently four endemic coronaviruses that are present, causing the common cold. As per the experts, COVID-19 will become the fifth. 

 

“This virus is here to stay. The question is, how do we live with it safely?” Sarah Cobey, an epidemiologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago were quoted as saying by Post.

 

“It’s like we have attention-deficit disorder right now. Everything we’re doing is just a knee-jerk response to the short-term,” said Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It is a daunting proposition — a coronavirus-tinged world without a foreseeable end. But experts in epidemiology, disaster planning and vaccine development say embracing that reality is crucial to the next phase of America’s pandemic response. The long-term nature of COVID-19, they say, should serve as a call to arms for the public, a road map for the trillions of dollars Congress is spending and a fixed navigational point for the nation’s current, chaotic state-by-state patchwork strategy.
Combating endemic diseases requires long-range thinking, sustained effort and international coordination. Stamping out the virus could take decades — if it happens at all. Such efforts take time, money and, most of all, political will.
The coronavirus pandemic has infected over 5.6 million people worldwide and has claimed more than 3,55,000 lives to date, according to figures by Johns Hopkins University. The United States is currently the worst affected nation in the world with over 1.6 million cases and more than 1,00,000 deaths. The United States on May 26 became the first country in the world to surpass the 1,00,000 threshold in terms of the number of deaths that occurred due to COVID-19.