Today’s covid-19 news: · Single covid-19 and flu vaccine could be available in 2023, says Moderna CEO · England coronavirus restrictions might end in March · Thousands of hamsters euthanised in Hong Kong following evidence of coronavirus transmission
Sajid Javid, health secretary, arrives at No.10 Downing Street, London, UKIsolation period shortened for people with covid-19 in England
It is too soon to say the coronavirus is moving into an endemic phase, a World Health Organization official has warned. “Endemicity assumes that there’s stable circulation of the virus, at predictable levels with predictable waves of transmission… that doesn’t rely on external forces being placed in order to maintain that stability,” Catherine Smallwood said at. “But what we’re seeing at the moment, coming into 2022, is nowhere near that.
“Nobody knows exactly when we’ll be at the end of the tunnel, but we’ll [get] there,” EMA head of biological health threats and vaccine strategy Marco Cavaleri told journalists at. “What is important and what we’re seeing is that we are moving towards the virus being more endemic.” Cavaleri also warned that the repeated delivery of booster doses of covid-19 vaccines is not a sustainable strategy for managing outbreaks. “We are rather concerned about a strategy that entangles repeated vaccination within a short term,” he said. While booster doses might be necessary for those who are immunosuppressed or otherwise vulnerable to severe disease, “we cannot really continuously give a booster dose every three or four months”, he said.