In this article for the World Economic Forum Hans Heesterbeek, professor of Theoretical Epidemiology from the Utrecht University says that COVID-19 will not be eradicated quickly, even when vaccines becomes available.

Heesterbeek says that a more realistic scenarios is that SARS-CoV-2 will be added to the “(large and growing) family of infectious diseases that are what is known as ‘endemic’ in the human population’. He goes on to explain what “endemic” means in terms of disease, and how it can happen.

Some of the endemic infectious diseases in our population include influenza, measles, malaria, among others.

Editor’s Note: This article is important for a number of reasons. First, it is a direct answer to Bill Gates and governments, who think that it is possible for us to eradicate SARS-CoV-2 with a vaccine [see Bill Gates: Life will only return to normal after a second generation of COVID-19 vaccines and SARS-CoV-2 eliminated globally, also read ].

Second, it puts government efforts into perspective. Will the government’s chosen intervention be sustainable in the long run? Will it be able to protect the population while at the same time ensuring that society functions properly? Viewed in this context, we can see immediately that ALL of the coronavirus measures being implemented today cannot be viable.

Third, the article also shows us that there is no need to panic over mutations in SARS-CoV-2. This point has been more deeply discussed by another article on this website, read New York Times: The coronavirus is mutating, and that’s fine and The coronavirus has mutated: Here’s why you shouldn’t panic. It also offers a more objective look on immunity.

Lastly, Heesterbeek’s article should not be seen as a support to the idea of the “new normal”. As what he has stated in his article, “How we deal with COVID-19 once it becomes endemic will depend on how good our vaccines and treatments are. If they can protect people from the most severe outcomes, the infection will become manageable”. Current interventions, those that are meant to bring us to this “new normal” are already failing to curtail infections [but we must reiterate that increasing infection rates, why do we think they can be useful in the future? With this last statement, we must reiterate our view that the “increasing” infection rates are no more than an artifact of unreliable RT-PCR tests, and is being used as a tool for fear-mongering [see more at The danger of over-reliance on RT-PCR tests, New York Times: More experts questioning RT-PCR testing, RT-PCR tests are scientifically meaningless, and Why COVID-19 is guaranteed to never end].

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COVID-19 will probably become endemic – here’s what that means

There is little reason to believe that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 will go away any time soon, writes Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology Hans Heesterbeek.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/covid19-coronavirus-pandemic-disease-endemic/