Covid Pandemic: Five Years On, What Do We Know About the Virus?

It has been five years since the start of the Covid pandemic.

- Rachel Hall

Although most of the government requirements, from social distancing to face masks, have been consigned to the past, the virus is still prevalent and capable of causing real harm.

It was initially forecast to become a seasonal illness, but the virus is on the rise in the US – making it far from the common cold-style winter illness that was expected.

Experts told the Guardian that a lot of predictions made about how Covid would evolve have turned out to be wrong. Five years on, what do we know about the virus?

Is Covid on the rise?

Although news of a summer wave in the US has prompted fears it could be replicated in Britain, the latest data from UKHSA shows that cases dropped by 28% over the past week to reach 1,046. Since most people don't test any more, this is unlikely to reflect the true prevalence. The data for the past year shows that levels have remained more or less consistent, but with a large spike last October.

Is it a seasonal illness?

Experts assumed that as Covid became endemic, it would change into a winter bug like the common cold or flu. The UKHSA stats show this is not the case. "It is absolutely true that you are as likely to get Covid in summer as in winter," said Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London.

"It's been a shifting discussion – when do we calm down and say it's become an endemic coronavirus like the common cold. I think we're still so far off that place.