Coronavirus likely to become a seasonal infection like flu: Chinese scientist warn

• “This is very likely to be an epidemic that co-exists with humans for a long time, becomes seasonal and is sustained within human bodies,” says director of the Institute of Pathogen Biology.

So far more than 3 million people have been sickened and over 210,000 killed in the global pandemic.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing, a group of Chinese viral and medical researchers said, it is unlikely that the new virus will disappear the way its close cousin SARS did 17 years ago.

The reason they gave behind their worry was that the virus infects some people without causing obvious symptoms like fever. The infected people carry fully contain transmission as they can spread the disease undetected.

With SARS, the infected become seriously ill and the only way to stop spreading the virus is to quarantine them from others. Despite epidemic under control in China, the authorities are still findind dozens of asymptomatic cases of the coronavirus every day.

Jin Qi, director of the Institute of Pathogen Biology at China’s top medial research institute, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, said, “This is very likely to be an epidemic that co-exists with humans for a long time, becomes seasonal and is sustained within human bodies.”

A general consensus is forming between top researchers and government world-wide that the virus is unlikely to be eliminated despite all the measures and lockdowns, which have bought global economy to a halt. Some public health experts are calling for virus to be allowed to spread in controlled way through younger populations like India’s, while countries like Sweden have opted out of strict lockdowns.