Expert says Covid will never leave, but this is not necessarily bad news

It is unlikely that Covid-19 will ever go away, but like the flu, it could become a controllable disease, an expert told Euronews.

Professor Roland Kao, chair of veterinary epidemiology and data science at the University of Edinburgh, told Euronews that "there is certainly a chance" that the world will never escape Covid-19 but that "it could end up softer".

"In the same way that the flu pandemic, which occurred over 100 years ago, had three waves of infections each winter and then was milder, it can happen," he added, stressing however that "we we are exactly sure what next year will bring.

"The prediction is that if we wait long enough, it will get better, but we can never get rid of it. And that would be okay. It would be another disease we have to think about," he continued.

With virus mutation and the uneven global spread of vaccines, there is always the risk that more variants will emerge, more transmissible and resistant to treatments.

Just over six months after vaccines first spread, about 12.3% of the global population has received at least one dose, according to Our World In Data, most of whom live in affluent nations. The global population is not expected to be vaccinated at least until the end of 2022.

But one positive thing to keep in mind, Kao said, "is that we definitely have a lot of successful vaccines, more vaccines that approach protection in another way." Vaccine manufacturers are also looking at variants and researching ways to combat them.

"With all this effort that is going on, the chances increase that we will not only detect disturbing variants faster, but respond to them as well," he said.