The World Health Organization today (Wednesday 30/3) released an updated plan for COVID-19, laying out three possible scenarios for how the pandemic will evolve this year.
"Based on what we know now, the most likely scenario is that the coronavirus continues to evolve, but the severity of the disease it causes (Covid-19) reduces over time as immunity increases due to vaccination and infection," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a briefing.
However, the WHO head cautioned that periodic spikes in cases and deaths may occur as immunity wanes, which may require periodic boosting for vulnerable populations.
Talking about the other two potential scenarios, Dr. Tedros said either less severe variants will emerge and boosters or new formulations of vaccines will not be necessary, or a more virulent variant will emerge and protection from prior vaccination or infection will wane rapidly.