Is it time we learned to live with Covid-19?

In The News: Professor Tim Colbourn on why eradicating the virus is impossible

Two years into the pandemic, it’s still not clear how, when, or if it will end. Photograph: Alan Betson
Two years into the pandemic, it’s still not clear how, when, or if it will end. Photograph: Alan Betson

Two years into the pandemic, it’s still not clear how, when, or if it will end.

With health systems across the world in a permanent state of crisis mode, other pressing health and societal problems that require urgent attention remain side lined.

"Too many people are hung up on Covid to the extent that nothing else is relevant and we can't think in terms of policy like that two years into the pandemic," says Tim Colbourn, professor of global health systems, epidemiology and evaluation at University College London, in today's episode of In The News.

“We can’t eliminate Covid-19, we can’t have border closures and lockdowns for the next 50 years, so even though none of us want to, we’re going to have to learn to live with the virus,” he says.

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Today, he explains how Covid-19 should be viewed long term and why vaccines and new drugs will lessen the burden of the virus year-on-year.

In The News is presented by reporters Conor Pope and Sorcha Pollak

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Jennifer Ryan

Jennifer Ryan is a former audio producer at The Irish Times