Dr David Nabarro, the WHO’s special envoy for Covid-19, said the “end was in sight” but that Europe was only “passing the halfway mark in a marathon”.
Asked about remarks that Covid should be treated like the flu, Dr Nabarro told Sky News: “I keep wondering what the people who make these amazing predictions know that I and my colleagues in the World Health Organisation don’t know.
Surprises “What people are seeing from around the world and reporting to the WHO is this is still a very, very dangerous virus, especially for people not vaccinated and who’ve not been exposed to it before.
“It can also mutate and form variants and we’ve seen several but there are more not far away.
“So quite honestly, we are not saying that this should be considered to be like flu or indeed like anything else.
“It’s a new virus, and we must go on treating it as though it is full of surprises, very nasty and rather cunning.”
Sajid Javid recently said “we need to learn to live with Covid”.
The Health Secretary added: “Sadly, people die of flu as well. In a bad flu year you can sadly lose about 20,000 lives but we don’t shut down our entire country and put in place lots of restrictions to deal with it.”
