Coronavirus could take FIVE YEARS to bring under control warns WHO's chief scientist

This is what the WHO were saying back in January.

See the ever changing Party line from Dr. Fauchi.

Dr. Fauci: “Americans shouldn’t walk around with masks on, it does more harm than good”

Dr. Fauci: “Looked our my window today and was comforted that everyone had a mask on.”

Dr. Fauci: “Children are immune to this virus..”

Dr. Fauci: “I’d advise against opening up schools at this point in case of an unforeseeable outbreak.”

Dr. Fauci: “..but if you find a hot date on a dating app and think it’s worth the risk then it’s understandable”

Dr. Fauci: We May never go back to shaking hands at all. It would prevent corona virus and common influenza as well.

Dr. Fauci: “Americans do not have to worry about this virus being a problem”

Dr. Fauci: “I worry some states are trying to open up too early..”

I believe we are being softened-up for perpetual lockdown and everything that comes with it.

Coronavirus: 'This virus may 

never go away,' World Health 

Organisation says

Stuff,

14 May, 2020

A top World Health Organisation official has warned Covid-19 could be around for a long time, as nations struggle to balance reopening economies with new outbreaks.

"This virus may never go away,'' WHO chief of health emergencies Dr Michael Ryan said in a press briefing on Thursday (NZT).

Without a vaccine, he said it could take years for the global population to build up sufficient levels of immunity.

"I think it's important to put this on the table," he said

"This virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities,'' he said, noting other previously novel diseases such as HIV have never disappeared, but that effective treatments have been developed.

Ryan had a grim warning about coronavirus: Even though an effective vaccine might be developed, it would require immense work to produce sufficient doses and distribute them worldwide.

"Every single one of those steps is fraught with challenges,'' he said.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's technical lead for Covid-19, said she recognised some people were "in a state of feeling quite some despair,'' but pointed out that stopping the virus even without medical interventions was possible

"The trajectory of this outbreak is in our hands,'' she said.

"We have seen some countries bring the virus under control.''

The tension in balancing people's safety against the severe economic fallout is playing out across the world.

Italy partially lifted lockdown restrictions last week only to see a big jump in confirmed coronavirus cases in its hardest-hit region. Pakistan reported 2000 new infections in a single day after crowds of people crammed into local markets as restrictions were eased

Despite the risk that loosening restrictions could lead to infection spikes, European nations have been seeking to restart cross-border travel, particularly as the summer holiday season looms for countries whose economies rely on tourists.

The European Union has unveiled a plan to help citizens across its 27 nations salvage their summer vacations after months of lockdown.

European countries have also begun slowly easing their lockdowns, from barber shops reopening next week in Belgium to some schools starting up again soon in Portugal.

In the United States, the country's top infectious disease expert has issued a blunt warning cities and states could see more Covid-19 deaths and economic damage if they lift stay-at-home orders too quickly.

"There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,'' Dr Anthony Fauci said in US Senate testimony this week after more than two dozen US states began to lift lockdowns.

His comments were a sharp pushback to President Donald Trump, who wants to right a free-falling economy that has seen 33 million Americans lose their jobs.

Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 4.2 million people and killed some 292,000, according to the Johns Hopkins tally. Experts say the actual numbers are likely far higher.

Coronavirus could take FIVE 

YEARS to bring under 

control warns WHO's chief 

scientist

MSN,

13 May, 2020

It could be four to five years before the Covid-19 pandemic is under control, a senior global health official has said.

But with hopes of an end to the pandemic dependent on containing the virus and development of an effective vaccine, other experts have dampened expectations of putting a date on curbing the virus.

There are globally more than 4.3 million confirmed coronavirus cases, with the death toll now approaching 300,000.

With the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) causing significant global disruption in 2020, the U.K. responded by announcing strict country-wide measures aimed at slowing the spread of the virus. After ordering pubs, bars, restaurants, theatres, gyms and leisure centres across the country to close indefinitely, Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the public on March 23; outlining strict exercise and shopping limits, ordering all shops other than food stores and pharmacies to close, and implementing a ban on public gatherings of two or more people. First Secretary of State Dominic Raab, while deputising for Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he recovered from coronavirus (COVID-19), announced on April 16 that the U.K. lockdown would continue for at least another three weeks. On May 10, the government released preliminary guidelines on how the country is to exit the lockdown while setting out plans for a tentative easing on social restrictions in the coming months. With many businesses continuing to feel the effects of the pandemic, the government is also delivering an unprecedented economic relief package estimated to cost over £400 billion.

As individuals and groups across the U.K. continue to conduct their daily life in lockdown, we look at the situation around the country in pictures.

Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organisation's (WHO) chief scientist, told the FT's Global Boardroom digital conference: 'I would say in a four to five-year timeframe, we could be looking at controlling this.'

Influential factors include whether the virus matures, the containment measures put in place and the development of a vaccine, she told the conference.

She said that a vaccine 'seems for now the best way out', but there were 'lots of ifs and buts' about its efficacy and safety, as well as its production and equitable distribution, the newspaper reported.

Asked about the comments during the WHO's tri-weekly briefing from Geneva, Dr Mike Ryan, who heads up the organisation's health emergencies programme, said no one could predict when the disease would disappear.

But he also issued a warning about easing lockdown measures without appropriate surveillance measures in place adding: 'We should not be waiting to see if opening of lockdowns have worked counting the bodies in the morgue.'

He 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.

'What is clear, and I think maybe what Soumya may have been alluding to, is that the current number of people in our population who've been infected is actually relatively low.

'And if you're a scientist, and you project forward in the absence of a vaccine, and you try and calculate "how long is it going to take for enough people to be infected so that this disease settles into an endemic trace"?

'And it is important to put this on the table - this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities. And this virus may never go away.

'HIV has not gone away, we've come to terms with the virus and we have found the therapies and we found the prevention methods, and people don't feel as scared as they did before and we're offering long healthy life to people with HIV.'

He continued: 'I don't think anyone can predict when or if this disease will disappear.

'We do have one great hope - if we do find a highly effective vaccine that we can distribute to everyone who needs it in the world, we may have a shot at eliminating this virus.

'But that vaccine will have to be highly effective, it will have to be made available to everyone, and we will have to use it.'

But citing unvaccinated populations for diseases like measles, he went on: 'Forgive me if I'm cynical. But we have some perfectly effective vaccines on this planet that we have not used effectively for diseases we could eliminate and eradicate and we haven't done.

'We've lacked the will, we have lacked the determination to invest in health systems to deliver that.

'And therefore, science can come up with the vaccine - someone is going to make it and we've got to make enough of it so everyone can get a dose of it and we've got to be able to deliver that.

'And people have got to want to take that vaccine. Every single one of those steps is fraught with challenges.'

But he added: 'It's a massive opportunity for the world.

'The idea that a new disease could emerge, cause a pandemic, and we could - with a massive moonshot - find a vaccine and give that to everyone who needs it and stop this disease in its tracks will turn, maybe what has been a tragic pandemic, into a beacon of hope for the future of our planet and the way we care for our citizens.'

Meanwhile, on countries reopening after lockdowns, Dr Ryan warned that surveillance systems must be in place or it could be 'days or weeks' before officials know the virus is 'accelerating' again.

'If that virus transmission accelerates and you don't have the systems to detect it, it will be days or weeks before you know something has gone wrong,' he continued.

'And by the time that happens, you're back into a situation where your only response is another lockdown.

'And I think this is what we all fear - a vicious cycle of public health disaster, followed by an economic disaster, followed by public health disaster, followed by economic disaster.'

He went on: 'If the health system gets time to recover, then it can cope with another rise in cases, and the health system can probably do that a few times. I'm not sure how many times the economic system can do that.'

Dr Ryan added: 'We should not be waiting to see if opening of lockdowns has worked by counting the cases in the ICU (intensive care units), or counting the bodies in the morgue, that is not the way to know something has gone wrong.

'The way to know that the disease is coming back is to have community-based surveillance, to be testing, and to know the problem is coming back, and then be able to adjust your public health measures accordingly.

'Let us not go back to a situation where we don't know what's happening until our hospitals are overflowing. That is not a good way to do business.'