Covid-19 “probably” will become a seasonal virus, like the flu, said the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
CDC officials say it’s increasingly likely that the coronavirus will never really go away, but instead will be a virus that surges in the winter.
Despite the fact that the cases of Covid-19 continue to fall throughout the country, the director of the CDC maintains that the coronavirus is most likely here to stay, and that it could behave in a similar way to influenza.
“I anticipate that this is probably a seasonal virus,” Walensky said. “That means it could join the flu and other respiratory viruses that tend to spread during the cold winter months.”
The United States is averaging 49,569 new Covid-19 cases per day, according to an NBC News tally, a decline of more than 54% in the past two weeks.
Virus-related death figures are also falling, now averaging 1,533 a day, a reduction of around a third in the last two weeks.