Will COVID-19 plague us forever? Here’s what the experts say

“As long as any of your readers are alive, we’ll have some form of COVID,” said Andrew Noymer, [associate public health professor], at UC Irvine, whose crystal ball on the pandemic has been unnervingly accurate. “That’s not to suggest we’re going to have half-a-million deaths a year and clog emergency departments. “But COVID is going to be here,” he said. “There won’t be masking orders coming down from the government, but some will have masks dangling from their rear-view mirrors for the rest of their lives.”