No evidence to suggest coronavirus will disappear in summer: WHO expert

here is no evidence right now to suggest that the new coronavirus will disappear in summer, a senior expert with the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday (March 6), urging countries to fight Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, decisively at the current stage.

“We do not know yet what the activity or behaviour of the virus will be in different climatic conditions,” Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, told a daily briefing, warning against the assumption that the virus would just disappear on its own in the summertime like influenza.

“We have to assume the virus will continue to have the capacity to spread,” he said.

Dr Ryan stressed that the disease can emerge anywhere on the planet. For instance, Ebola very often emerged in Africa, while the last pandemic influenza H1N1 emerged in North America.

He called on countries and societies to avoid “blame culture” and to do all the things needed to save lives.