“We will never eradicate this virus”

Infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, says it’s very likely that the world will never be rid of coronavirus. 

“We will never eradicate this virus,” Osterholm said on CNN’s “Newsroom,” comparing the coronavirus to HIV, explaining that we’ll be able to control it but it’ll never fully disappear. 

“This is here for the rest of all humankind. This is a virus we’re never going to get rid of,” he said. 

Osterholm’s comments come a day after Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert on infectious diseases, said he doesn’t “really see us eradicating” the virus fully.  

“Until we actually have a commitment to getting this virus to a very, very low level, we're not going to really do much except continue to put out this raging forest fire the best we can,” Osterholm said. 

Osterholm also said that while great progress is being made in the development of Covid-19 vaccine, the first iteration will be only one step. 

“The best, I think, we can hope for is a vaccine that protects most of us for at least months and maybe not years. That next level of vaccines would try to do more with the immune system than we have now. But they're far, far off into the future. They’re not going to have any impact on what we're doing right now.” 

Source: CNN