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Coronavirus: no easy way out of pandemic, even with a vaccine, experts say
- People ‘need to realise that this is truly an unprecedented virus’, professor of infectious diseases says
- The future will depend on how governments use strategies and tools, and how people adapt their daily lives, experts say
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The future remains foggy as the coronavirus pandemic charges into the second half of the year, with more than 1 million new infections reported in the past week. But one thing is clear, experts say: there is no easy way out.
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Infectious disease experts can only theorise about what trajectory the virus will take in the coming months and whether it will embed itself permanently in the population and circulate every year.
But they generally agree that the future will depend on how governments use strategies and tools, and how people adapt their daily lives.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organisation, said on Monday that things would only get “worse and worse and worse” if countries and people did not take the necessary steps to stop the spread of Covid-19.
There was no way for the world to return to the “old normal” for the foreseeable future, he said.
A new reality
Daniel Lucey, an adjunct professor of infectious diseases at Georgetown University Medical Centre in Washington, agreed.
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