No grounds to expect Covid-19 pandemic to end soon - Gamaleya Center's Gintsburg

MOSCOW. Jan 18 (Interfax) - There is no solid scientific basis under the premise that the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 might eventually put an end to the pandemic, Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Russian Health Ministry's Gamaleya Research Center,

"I do perfectly believe that it may infect everybody. But unfortunately, I see no scientific reasons why everything should end on this," Gintsburg said on the Rossiya 24 (VGTRK) television channel, when asked whether the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant might put an end to the pandemic.

Asked how long he believes the pandemic might last, Gintsburg replied that this would take a very long time, until most of the world's population develops immunity to it.

"Moreover, if we vaccinate the globe's population this slowly, this immunity should develop with a very constant conserved fragment of the S protein. To this end, a person has to be vaccinated multiple times or be confronted with the virus multiple times to develop a large quantity of highly specific antibodies to the highly conserved sequences of the S protein, which will be present in regularly emerging new coronavirus variants," he said.

Some academics have assumed earlier that the spread of the Omicron variant might eventually put an end of the coronavirus pandemic, transforming Covid-19 into a regular respiratory disease.