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  • NEWS FEATURE

The coronavirus is here to stay — here’s what that means

A Nature survey shows many scientists expect the virus that causes COVID-19 to become endemic, but it could pose less danger over time.
  1. Nicky Phillips
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Children play on playground equipment on a sunny day in Copenhagen

Children in Copenhagen play during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Endemic viruses are often first encountered in childhood. Credit: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty

For much of the past year, life in Western Australia has been coronavirus-free. Friends gathered in pubs; people kissed and hugged their relatives; children went to school without temperature checks or wearing masks. The state maintained this enviable position only by placing heavy restrictions on travel and imposing lockdowns — some regions entered a snap lockdown at the beginning of the year after a security guard at a hotel where visitors were quarantined tested positive for the virus. But the experience in Western Australia has provided a glimpse into a life free from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. If other regions, aided by vaccines, aimed for a similar zero-COVID strategy, then could the world hope to rid itself of the virus?

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Nature 590, 382-384 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00396-2

References

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