The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) will soon turn into a chronic seasonal disease such as influenza, according to Mohamed Awad Tag El-Din, the President’s Adviser on Health and Prevention Affairs.
In a Tuesday evening telephone interview aired on state-owned Channel 1, Tag El-Din added that the same seasonality can be seen in swine flu, which has changed into a seasonal flu.
He added that the fall in new coronavirus cases in the past week means that infections will begin to gradually decline, as “we can say we have reached the [virus] peak”.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health reported 913 new coronavirus cases and 59 new fatalities. This brings Egypt’s total number of infections to 84,843 and 4,067 deaths. A total of 26,135 cases have recovered and been discharged from isolation facilities around the country.
The presidential adviser said that Egypt’s current situation regarding the coronavirus crisis is much better when compared to June’s figures. He cited the decline in infections and the reduced severity of the virus as the basis on which to believe that the country’s cases will now decline.
Tag El-Din noted that the argument regarding the weakening ferocity of the coronavirus is “scientific”, and is frequent in all types of viruses.
As the most recent form of the coronavirus was, at the beginning, new to the human body, Tag El-Din said that the body would not be able to recognise it.
“It was difficult for the body’s immune system to resist it in some cases,” he explained, adding that the more the virus transmits from one person to another, the more its strength declines.
Tag El-Din said the pandemic will change radically when the virus loses its intensity and the human body gains immunity against it, to the extent that it will turn into a seasonal virus.
Egypt’s daily tally of coronavirus infections has reduced in recent weeks, staying put between 900-1,000 new daily cases over the past week.
At the end of June, Egypt declared a return to normal life while some precautionary measures remained in effect, aimed at limiting the spread of the virus.
