Expert rejects near end of COVID, foresees seasonal spread

Toronto: Covid spread will possibility become seasonal like any other endemic flu due to several variants formed out of incessant mutations taking place in coronavirus, suggested Dr Alan Bernstein, an expert on the Canadian government's Covid-19 Task Force

Bernstein also cautioned vaccine makers to adapt and modify their shots over the coming years to deal with the spread of the virus.

Canada is already negotiating with vaccine suppliers for it, he said.

"We've been in this journey before, of course, with [the] flu, we all get the influenza vaccine every year and every year is a different vaccine because the influenza virus changes every year," said Bernstein.

"So those are variants, and some years, of course, the flu variants can be very serious and some years are quite mild -- the ones that are serious, we don't call them variants of concern, but we could."

"And so I think we're going to enter into that world now with the Covid-19 variants of concern and the ones that we know about now," he added.

First discovered in the UK, B117 has become the main Covid variant Canada today and is causing some concern as it is up to 65 per cent more transmissible.

Another variant in the country is the more vaccine-resistant B1351 variant, initially found in South Africa.