LONDON A leading scientist in the UK warned Tuesday that COVID-19 will never be eradicated and is “almost uncontrollable.”
Professor David Robertson, head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow, was giving evidence to the House of Lords Science and Technology committee.
“It is so transmissible, it’s so successful, we’re so susceptible, that actually it’s a little bit of a red herring to worry about it getting worse, because it couldn’t be much worse at the moment in terms of the numbers of cases,” he said.
The professor compared the coronavirus pandemic to Ebola, which killed thousands in West Africa between 2014 and 2016
He said that while Ebola has very high virulence, and kills many people, it is also more controllable because you can identify infected people.
The new coronavirus, however, “is infecting so many people with asymptomatic to mild symptoms that it’s almost uncontrollable,” he said.
“I think we have to be clear that we’re not going to be able to eradicate this virus.
“It’s going to settle into the human population and in several years it will become a normal virus.”
