'We Know There Will Be More Variants Of Concern': Why WHO Scientist Says Covid Isn't Ending

As nations continue to relax their COVID-19 restrictions, the World Health Organization's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan stressed that additional variants are imminent and that the pandemic is not over.

The rampant spread of the Omicron variant made it clear that every infection is an opportunity for the virus to mutate. That point was highlighted by Swaminathan and WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who were visiting South Africa's vaccine manufacturing facilities.

“We have seen the virus evolve, mutate ... so we know there will be more variants, more variants of concern,” Swaminathan said, as reported by Reuters. “We are not at the end of the pandemic."

Department chair of epidemiology and microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health Albert Ko said that if COVID were to become endemic, it won’t happen overnight.

“This is not a situation where you have a flip of the switch, like, we’re pandemic one day and then we switch to endemic,” he clarified.

However, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky said "we have seen now that this is likely to become an endemic disease here in the U.S. and really around the world."

The World Health Organization has previously emphasized that it will not be the last variant, suggesting that the pandemic is “nowhere near over.”