By Charlotte Webster-
The virus which causes Covid-19 will eventually become like the seasonal coronaviruses which cause the common cold, according to a leading expert.Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert- a British vaccinologist at the University of Oxford, told a Royal Society of Medicine webinar that viruses tend to become weaker as they spread around . Gilbert, who specialises in the development of vaccines against influenza and emerging viral pathogen
She said: ‘We normally see that viruses become less virulent as they circulate more easily and there is no reason to think we will have a more virulent version of Sars-CoV-2. We tend to see slow genetic drift of the virus and there will be gradual immunity developing in the population as there is to all the other seasonal coronaviruses.’
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Prof Gilbert added: ‘We already live with four different human coronaviruses that we don’t really ever think about very much and eventually Sars-CoV-2 will become one of those. It’s just a question of how long it’s going to take to get there and what measures we’re going to have to take to manage it in the meantime.’
She also told the audience on Wednesday that she is “waiting” for funding to look into vaccines for other infectious diseases.Work must be done to prepare for future pandemics, she warned, adding that small amounts of investment now could potentially save billions of pounds in the long run.
She agreed that the lack of investment from governments and other research funding sources shows they have not learned lessons about the importance of pandemic preparedness.
“We’re still trying to raise funds to develop other vaccines that we were working on before the pandemic against diseases that have caused outbreaks in the past and will cause outbreaks in the future – Nipah virus, lassa fever virus and Mers coronavirus were three that I’m working on and still trying to raise funds to work on.”
Professor Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, said Covid-19 could resemble the common cold by spring next year as people’s immunity to the virus is boosted by vaccines and exposure.
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Asked about Prof Gilbert’s comments on Times Radio, Sir John said: ‘If you look at the trajectory we’re on, we’re a lot better off than we were six months ago.
‘So, the pressure on the NHS is largely abated. If you look at the deaths from Covid, they tend to be very elderly people, and it’s not entirely clear it was Covid that caused all those deaths. So, I think we’re over the worst of it now.
She told the audience on Wednesday that she is “waiting” for funding to look into vaccines for other infectious diseases.
Work must be done to prepare for future pandemics, she warned, adding that small amounts of investment now could potentially save billions of pounds in the long run.
She agreed that the lack of investment from governments and other research funding sources shows they have not learned lessons about the importance of pandemic preparedness.
“We’re still trying to raise funds to develop other vaccines that we were working on before the pandemic against diseases that have caused outbreaks in the past and will cause outbreaks in the future – Nipah virus, lassa fever virus and Mers coronavirus were three that I’m working on and still trying to raise funds to work on.”
‘And I think what will happen is, there will be quite a lot of background exposure to Delta (variant), we can see the case numbers are quite high, that particularly in people who’ve had two vaccines if they get a bit of breakthrough symptomatology, or not even symptomatology – if they just are asymptomatically infected, that will add to our immunity substantially, so I think we’re headed for the position Sarah describes probably by next spring would be my view.
‘We have to get over the winter to get there but I think it should be fine.’
Sir John said ‘it’s pretty important that we don’t panic about where we are now’, adding that ‘the number of severe infections and deaths from Covid remains very low’.
He said Covid vaccines worked to prevent serious illness and death but ‘don’t really effectively reduce the amount of transmission’.
This was the reason why in Israel the ‘reality is transmission in schools have gone way up and transmissions after holidays have gone way up’.
He said he agreed with England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, that the vast majority of children would get Covid without a vaccine, adding that ‘this is now an endemic virus, it’ll circulate pretty widely’.
But Sir John said there are ‘no bad consequences’ in children with the virus, adding that ‘I don’t think there’s any reason to panic’.
He continued: ‘I don’t think we’re going to have a lot of children in intensive care units. And in fact, the evidence is we don’t, we never have. And the likelihood of severe disease (is) quite small.’
‘And I think what will happen is, there will be quite a lot of background exposure to Delta (variant), we can see the case numbers are quite high, that particularly in people who’ve had two vaccines if they get a bit of breakthrough symptomatology, or not even symptomatology – if they just are asymptomatically infected, that will add to our immunity substantially, so I think we’re headed for the position Sarah describes probably by next spring would be my view.
‘We have to get over the winter to get there but I think it should be fine.’
Sir John said ‘it’s pretty important that we don’t panic about where we are now’, adding that ‘the number of severe infections and deaths from Covid remains very low’.
He said Covid vaccines worked to prevent serious illness and death but ‘don’t really effectively reduce the amount of transmission’.
This was the reason why in Israel the ‘reality is transmission in schools have gone way up and transmissions after holidays have gone way up’
Sir John added: ‘If everybody’s expecting the vaccines and the boosters to stop that, they won’t. And it’s slightly a false promise.’
He said he agreed with England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, that the vast majority of children would get Covid without a vaccine, adding that ‘this is now an endemic virus, it’ll circulate pretty widely’.
But Sir John said there are ‘no bad consequences’ in children with the virus, adding that ‘I don’t think there’s any reason to panic’.
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He continued: ‘I don’t think we’re going to have a lot of children in intensive care units. And in fact, the evidence is we don’t, we never have. And the likelihood of severe disease (is) quite small.’