Covid Could Be Treated Like The Flu By The End Of Year Matt Hancock Believes

Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has said he hopes coronavirus could become a treatable disease by the end of the year. Hancock said, “turning Covid from a pandemic that affects all of our lives into another illness that we have to live with, like we do flu. That’s where we need to get Covid to over the months to come”.

His optimism comes after a consistent period of lowering cases of covid in the UK. The UK’s R number has fallen to below one for the first time since July. The figure is now between 0.7 and 0.9, according to the latest estimate and below one in every region of the UK. Vaccines as he put it represent “our way out to freedom”.

Scientists though are not sharing the same message as Hancock. They have warned against treating coronavirus like the flu, as mutations are getting “more dangerous” and “more infectious”.

Virologist Dr Sarah Pitt told the BBC: “It’s not a type of flu. It’s not the same sort of virus. It doesn’t cause the same sort of disease, it’s very, very nasty.”