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According to the chief scientist of the World Health Organization, it will take four or five years for the coronavirus to really be under control.
Soumya Swaminathan of the WHO offered his forecast on Wednesday, warning of the many variables at play that will determine how long the virus will hit the earth.
“Let’s say we have a vaccine and we can cover the entire world population, which can take, I don’t know, three years, four years,” he said during a panel discussion at the Financial Times. “Then I would say that within four to five years we could be looking to control this.”
Swaminathan added that a vaccine “seems for now the best way out,” but expressed his assessment, adding that “there is no crystal ball” and that the pandemic could even “potentially worsen.”
And if the virus mutates, it could make an established vaccine ineffective, he said.
Another panellist questioned whether COVID-19 would actually be eradicated.
“Only smallpox has been eliminated and eradicated as a human disease,” said panelist Peter Piot, professor of global health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“We will have to find a way as societies to live with this,” added Piot, suggesting that society will eventually have to shift from general blockages to more specific and “specific” approaches to calm the outbreaks.
As the United States grapples with its blockades state by state, Swaminathan said the “biggest challenge” right now is weighing the health risks against economic reopens.
The number of cases and the capacity of health care systems should be considered as economies reopen and special attention should be paid to high-risk areas such as nursing homes and large gathering places, such as sporting events and churches Swaminathan said.
“The risks and benefits will have to be carefully evaluated and the needs balanced,” he said, “and the tradeoffs carefully considered.”
Swaminathan dismissed hope of developing COVID-19’s “herd immunity,” where populations naturally build resistance to the disease through exposure, saying it would mean accepting a “high death rate.”
Worldwide, studies have shown natural immunity rates between 10 and 15 percent, far from the 90 to 95 percent of the population that would need to develop immunity to achieve herd immunity, Swaminathan said.
“People who become infected now will develop antibodies and hopefully be immune for some time. We don’t know how long that will last, “he added.” That has yet to be studied. “
