A scientific model predicts that the Coronavirus will infect up to 100 million people next winter, even if numbers go down soon.
Researchers suggest that we are only experiencing a small spike in transmissions this spring, which will be followed by a decline and then a large resurgence in the winter of 2020/2021.
Dr Emma Hodcroft, one of the paper’s co-authors, said its “hard to have exact numbers” but said the model was “not an unreasonable scenario”.
She explained: “These predictions are ones we’ve made based on assumptions about how seasonality affects transmission, based on how it is known to affect other coronaviruses.”
She added that she “wouldn’t focus on absolute numbers” but said the “general message that there could be substantially more cases if there is a seasonal affect”.
At the time of writing, 6 people have died from Coronavirus in the UK, and over 115,000 have been diagnosed worldwide.
