January 14, 2021: The CEO of Moderna, Stephane Bancel, warned on Wednesday that the coronavirus that has brought world economies to a standstill and overwhelmed hospitals would be around “forever.”

According to Public health officials and experts, there is a high possibility that Covid-19 to be present in communities all the time, likely at lower levels than it is now.

“We are going to live with this virus, we think, forever,” Stephane said during a panel discussion at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference.

Health officials will have to continuously watch for new variants of the virus, so scientists can produce vaccines to fight them, Stephane said.

Researchers in Ohio said they’d discovered two new variants coming up in the U.S. and that one of them rapidly became the dominant strain in Columbus, Ohio, in late December and January.

Pfizer researchers said its vaccine developed with BioNTech appeared to be effective against a critical mutation in the U.K. strain and a variant found in South Africa.

The Food and Drug Administration has authorized Moderna’s vaccine for use in Americans who are 18 years old and above. More study is needed to know about children whose immune systems are very different compared to adults.

U.S. officials are racing to distribute doses of both vaccines. Still, it will take months before the U.S. can vaccinate people to achieve immunity unless the virus stops spreading. Still, Stephane said he expects the U.S. will be one of the first large countries to achieve “sufficient protection” against the virus.

According to the World Health Organization, there are already four coronaviruses that are endemic across the world, but they aren’t as contagious as Covid-19.