A leading virologist from the University of Queensland has said that it’s likely all Australians will eventually contract the deadly coronavirus as the outbreak continues to hit countries all around the world.
University of Queensland professor Ian Mackay told The Australian that the virus is likely to be “with us for life”.
“It doesn’t look like that virus is ever going to go back in its box,” he said.
“If that’s the case, at some point in the coming months or years we’re all going to get infected.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison took the landmark step of treating the virus as a “global pandemic” as he announced that the nation’s emergency response plan has now been enacted.
Mackay said that the virus has been the most deadly for people in their 80s.
“So it might just tick over a bit like flu does now, harshly affecting the elderly more so than the rest of us, but still causing coughs and colds and perhaps putting people in hospital in numbers that we’re really not clear about yet.”
WIth more than 2,760 people killed and 81,000 infected in over 45 countries, there are rising fears that poorer countries with weaker health infrastructures are unable to cope with the virus.
“We’re at a decisive point,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference in Geneva.
“If you act aggressively now, you can contain this virus, you can prevent people getting sick, you can save lives.”
Leading coronavirus expert Professor Gabriel Leung from the University of Hong Kong said that it is “inevitable” that all countries will be hit by the virus.
“It’s what’s happening in the rest of the world that’s now our greatest concern,” Tedros said to Yahoo News.
“We are actually in a very delicate situation in which the outbreak can go in any direction based on how we handle it.”
