The deadly novel coronavirus could burn out naturally before any vaccine is developed, a former World Health Organisation chief claimed.
“We are seeing a roughly similar pattern everywhere – I suspect we have more immunity than estimated,” Professor Karol Sikora, who previously directed the WHO’s cancer programme, said on Saturday.
“We need to keep slowing the virus, but it could be petering out by itself. It is my opinion that this is a feasible scenario.”
Writing on Twitter, Prof Sikora – who is currently chief medical officer at Rutherford Health – caveated his hopeful comments with the statement: “Nobody is claiming to know what will happen for sure – I believe in an unknown situation this is a possibility.
“We need to continue to keep our distance and hope the numbers continue to improve.”
His hopeful comments come days after a new study in the International Journal of Clinical Practice, using local authority “R” transmission rate data, estimated some 19 million people are “likely” to have already contracted the virus in the UK.
(Source: Independent)
