A top official with the World Health Organization offered a dire warning about the coronavirus.
Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, said Wednesday that the world might have to learn to adjust and live with COVID-19 as countries grapple with reopenings and attempts to mitigate deaths that result from the infections.
“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,” Ryan said during a virtual press conference. “This virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away.”
He compared the virus to HIV and said that though that disease has not gone away, “we have come to terms with the virus.” Ryan warned that there is a “long, long way to go” before the world can expect to return to how it was before the pandemic began.
“There is some magical thinking going on that lockdowns work perfectly and that unlocking lockdowns will go great. Both are fraught with dangers,” he said. Despite the warning, he said that finding a vaccine that can be widely distributed is an important priority for the planet.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that while many nations “would like to get out of the different measures,” he noted that “our recommendation is still the alert at any country should be at the highest level possible.”
Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 4.3 million people and killed almost 300,000.
