We Asked One of the WHO’s Top Coronavirus Experts to Project the Pandemic’s Trajectory
As coronavirus cases worldwide surpass 350,000, TIME asked one of the world’s top officials in charge of fighting the coronavirus pandemic how he thinks it will play out. Dr. Bruce Aylward, the senior adviser to the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), spoke about the disease’s likely spread in coming months, how long it will likely impact daily life and the importance of testing in an interview with TIME reporter Amy Gunia. Here are some highlights from their conversation:
TIME: What do you think the coronavirus pandemic will look like six months from now?
Aylward: I expect we will be emerging—still with disease in various parts of the world—but we should be emerging from a bad wave of this disease across a large swathe of the planet.
The U.S. and Europe had quite a head start to get ready for this. Was a major outbreak inevitable, or could it have been stopped?
I don’t like to use the word “squandered,” that’s a big word. But we probably haven’t optimized how we used that time. Now what we’ve done is, we’ve gained time again by putting in place these big shutdowns. All they do is they buy time, they don’t actually stop the virus, they suppress it, they slow it. What you want to do now is use that time well to get the testing in place, to get the systems in place, so that you can actually manage the individual level cases that are going to be fundamental to stopping this.
How do you think this will end?
This will end with humanity victorious over yet another virus, there’s no question about that. The question is how much and how fast we will take the measures necessary to minimize the damage that this thing can do. In time, we will have therapeutics, we will have vaccines, we’re in a race against that.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was quarantined after a doctor who administered her a precautionary vaccine against pneumococcal infection tested positive for the coronavirus. Hundreds of millions are now under lockdown in India, which is enacting strict transportation restrictions. India’s railway service, which until recently carried some 25 million passengers per day, announced trains would cease running until March 31 at the earliest. The disruption to flights continues; Emirates—one of the world’s largest airlines—said Sunday that it is cutting its passenger flight destinations from 145 locations to 13 countries.
In the U.S, the Associated Press reports shortages in essential medical supplies tied to a sudden drop in imports, and the economy continues to falter on meany measures. On Sunday night, President Trump said his administration “would reassess the recommended period for keeping businesses shut and millions of workers at home after this week,” according to the New York Times, and the Federal Reserve announced today that it would lend up to $300 billion to businesses and cities to relieve some of the dire economic effects of the coronavirus outbreak. Meanwhile, as of writing, the Senate continues to debate the finer points of a $1.8 trillion coronavirus stimulus package, with Senate Democrats arguing that the bill is too focused on propping up corporations and doesn’t do enough for the average American.
In New York, which has become a major epicenter of the disease in the U.S., Governor Andrew Cuomo announced he and his staff are putting together a plan to address mental health. And the board overseeing New York City’s jails has called for officials to start releasing inmates who may be at-risk for COVID-19 and those who are behind bars for less serious offenses.
All numbers are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of March 22, 8 PM eastern time. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
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