Coronavirus May Never Go Away - Executive Director WHO

Michael Joseph Ryan, The Executive Director of the World Health Organization on Health Emergencies, also a surgeon, and epidemiologist specialising in infectious disease, has warned that coronavirus may never go away and populations around the world will have to learn to live with it.

Ryan Said “We have a new virus entering the human population for the first time and therefore it is very hard to predict when we will prevail over it, this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities and this virus may never go away,” he told a virtual press conference in Geneva. 

“HIV has not gone away, but we have come to terms with the virus.” 

More than half of humanity has been put under some form of lockdown since the coronavirus crisis began. But the WHO warned there was no way to guarantee that easing the restrictions would not trigger a second wave of infections. 

“Many countries would like to get out of the different measures,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “But our recommendation is still the alert at any country should be at the highest level possible.”

Ryan added that there was a “long, long way to go” on the path to returning to normal, insisting that countries would have to stay the course. 

“There is some magical thinking going on that lockdowns work perfectly and that unlocking lockdowns will go great. Both are fraught with dangers,” the Irish epidemiologist said.

13/5/2020 - 10:35 PM