COVID could “reset”, making the immunity the world has built up redundant, the World Health Organisation has warned.
The virus has become milder in its third year of infecting humans.
Omicron is the dominant variant now, producing a less severe illness – especially in the vaccinated.
Hospitalisations numbers are lower and people tend to recover from the bug after some time at home.
But the WHO warned this state is not fixed, with a worst-case scenario being an entirely new Covid virus emerging.
While it is hoped cases become stable, vaccines continue to work and the dominant form of the virus remains milder, experts warn curveballs could come.
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The WHO thinks governments and scientists should be ready for the “background threat” of Covid mutating in animals and jumping back to humans.
The ‘plan to end the global Covid-19 emergency in 2022’ said: “This scenario would effectively be a reset, with a completely susceptible global population.
“This scenario is not explicitly included as a planning scenario, but should be considered a background threat, and all Covid-19 response and readiness capacities should be understood to yield a resilience dividend pertaining to that threat.”
However virologists have suggested this wouldn’t be too much of a concern, because there would still be some protection from the current virus.
Included in the report are three possible Covid futures, ranging from best to worst scenarios.
The best is a prediction variants will be continuously milder, with immunity remaining high.
But the worst outlines a situation where a “more virulent and highly transmissible variant emerges against which vaccines are less effective, and/or immunity against severe disease and death wanes rapidly, especially in the most vulnerable groups”.
It comes as Covid is thought to have been found in 29 animals – including hamsters, bears, tigers and gorillas.
Earlier this year scientists claimed a white-tailed deer had possibly passed on a new mutation of the virus to people in Canada.
From tomorrow free Covid testing is being scrapped across the UK, with England the first to see the change.
It comes when Covid cases are still high, reaching record levels in some parts of the nation.
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The public will instead have to pay around £2 if they want to be sure if they have the bug or not.
It’s part of Boris Johnson’s plan to “live with Covid” and move the nation forward without self isolation and restrictions.
