Stressing that the Covid virus may continue to transmit for a “very long time”, senior WHO official Poonam Khetrapal Singh says the level of immunity in a community, through vaccination and previous infection, will determine whether it will become endemic in the long run. WHO’s South-East Asia region regional director said that there is need to get to a situation where “we are fully in control of the virus, and not the virus in control of us”. The last stage is when a population learns to live with a virus, very different from the epidemic stage when the virus overwhelms a population. Populations where more people were previously infected and where vaccination coverage is high are expected to be less impacted by the virus in the future than other populations, Ms Singh told news agency in a interview. “The COVID-19 virus is expected to continue to transmit for a very long time. A multitude of factors will decide whether the virus will become endemic in the long run, chief among them is the level of immunity in a community, both through vaccination and previous infection,” she said.
