Coronavirus pandemic may stick with us for a very long time as experts claimed that a vaccine is not enough to end the spreading of this unprecedented virus.s SCMP explained that as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread into the second half of the year, the future remained unclear. In the past week, more than 1 million new cases were reported across the globe.  

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Different experts claimed that getting out of the pandemic won't be easy, even with a vaccine. Scientists and medical experts can only make assumptions about what trajectory the virus will take in the following months, studying it if the viral virus will permanently circulate across countries every year. However, most experts agree that the future will depend on the strategies and tools the governments will use, as well as how people will adapt their daily lives in the "new normal." 

The director of general of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that if the people in every country across the globe will not take the necessary steps to stop the spread of coronavirus, things would only get "worse and worse and worse." He added it is not easy to return to the "old normal."

Although the lockdowns were able to stop significant disease spread, an adjunct professor of infectious diseases at Georgetown University Medical Centre in Washington, Daniel Lucey, said that there is still no effective way to control the pandemic the high psychological and financial toll. 

"It's a matter of doing the best that's possible in order to markedly decrease transmission," he added, saying there may be ongoing "high-tide wave and low-tide waves" of infection in the United States. However, Lucey explained that some facets of the normal life may be restored with the help of the development of better technologies such as medicines or drugs, as well as rapid point-of-care testing and measures like social distancing. 

Why won't vaccine work?

A professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, David Heymann, claimed that although vaccines are considered as a way to prevent further infections, they should not be the basis for long-term measures. 

"We all hope that there will be a vaccine, but it should not stop what we are trying to do today - and what are we trying to do today?" said Heymann.

Since emerging diseases and viruses have different pathways, developing an efficient long-term solution would depend on how the viral virus behaves, explained Heymann.

To prevent the increasing death rates of COVID-19 and control the number of cases in the hospitals, many countries are implementing such measures. 

"No matter where a country is in its epidemic curve, it is never too late to take decisive action," said Heymann. The report stated that most of the coronavirus cases were in America; however, the viral virus is also spreading across India's second-most populous country.   

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