Hopes end to coronavirus pandemic in ‘less than two years,’ says WHO

The World Health Organization said on Friday it hopes the planet will be rid of the coronavirus pandemic in less than two years — faster than it took for the Spanish flu.

“We hope to finish this pandemic before less than two years,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters from the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, insisting that it should be possible to tame the novel coronavirus faster than the deadly 1918 pandemic.

Compared to back then, the world today is at a disadvantage due to its “globalization, closeness, connectedness,” which has allowed the novel coronavirus to spread around the world at lightning speed, Tedros acknowledged. But the world also now has the advantage of far better technology, he said.

By “utilizing the available tools to the maximum and hoping that we can have additional tools like vaccines, I think we can finish it in a shorter time than the 1918 flu.”

AFP