While the people are longing for the coronavirus pandemic to end, scientists have predicted that the world might have to live in this situation for years.

Vox has quoted health experts as warning that the world had a slim choice to either practice social distancing or let hundreds of thousands die. “The fight may continue for months or even years,” they warned.

Health experts believe that social distancing is the best way to stop spread of this disease.

Adam Kucharski, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and author of The Rules of Contagion, a book on how outbreaks spread, said you were not going to get back to a normal life after shutting down eateries and schools for fortnight or a month. “That’s not what’s going to happen,” he said.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said, “When you’re dealing with an emerging infectious diseases outbreak, you are always behind where you think you are if you think that today reflects where you really are.”

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The experts said the infection outbreak will continue to spread until a vaccine was made and all the patients were treated.

Senior viral infection expert Kucharski said the virus was very likely going to affect people for a year or two as the world had no good options so far. The only way to sustainably reduce transmission were some strict unsustainable measures, he said.