When do you expect the CONVID-19 epidemic to be over?

Bruce Aylward: We can't say whether there will be an end point. Another important thing I learned about in China was its pragmatic approach. It decided it was going to reduce its cases as close as possible to zero, then reopen schools and get people back to work and get its economy back on track. And it will be great if COVID-19 disappears, as SARS did. But they're not planning that way.

Every governor and every mayor I spoke to said: "We're buying ventilators and building additional beds, even though the number of cases is falling. Because if this continues to occur, we have to be able to live and work with it, find it fast, get it isolated, manage it, and in the meantime work on vaccines. And that's a very pragmatic and appropriate approach. I hope that like other viruses COVID-19 will disappear, but that's wishful thinking, and it's not good planning.

Bruce Aylward, a Canadian epidemiologist and leader of the WHO-China Joint Mission on COVID-19, shares his insights with China Daily in Geneva on March 6.