• Question: Do you think Covid will be eradicated?

    Asked by Anjo.I on 19 Jan 2022.
    • Photo: Jonny Coates

      Jonny Coates answered on 19 Jan 2022:

      No, it is very challenging to eradicate a virus – we’ve only done this with a handful, for example smallpox. It will probably just become part of everyday life though, a bit like the flu.

    • Photo: Victoria Cox

      Victoria Cox answered on 20 Jan 2022: last edited 20 Jan 2022 9:49 am

      As Jonny ^ says, it’s very difficult to eradicate viruses. There are a few things which make certain viruses e.g. smallpox and hopefully soon polio ‘easier’ to eradicate. These include the virus giving life-long immunity (so after one infection people can’t catch it again), and not having animal reservoirs (the virus only infects humans so once enough people are immune/vaccinated the virus has nowhere else to spread, and can’t jump to humans from infected animals). Unfortunately neither of these is true for COVID-19. Hopefully though, the virus will become manageable soon even if not eradicated. Globally there have been huge efforts and amazing new developments to combat the virus such as the vaccines and surveillance programmes, which puts us in a good position going forward to be able to deal with COVID-19.

    • Photo: Melanie Krause

      Melanie Krause answered on 21 Jan 2022:

      Hi Anjo,

      No unfortunately not, because it can also infect animals and we can only eradicate viruses that only humans have. Also we would need a vaccine for that that is very efficient in protecting you from infection and not only getting sick.

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