Coronavirus continues to spread across the globe, having already infected over 90,000 people and killed more than 3,100. So far the UK has reported 51 patients infected with the virus, also known as COVID-19, but the number is expected to continue to rise over the coming days and weeks. The spread of infection is beginning to come under control in China – the epicentre of the outbreak, but scientists have warned it could become a reoccurring virus much like the common cold and influenza, which return each winter.

It is feared the coronanvirus could become a perennial illness, something that returns each winter, that cannot be cured.

Professor John Oxford, a virologist from Queen Mary University of London, told The Telegraph: “If you look at other members of the coronavirus family, that are respiratory viruses and we’ve known about them for the last 50 years or more, they’re seasonal.

“They’re just like the common cold, there’s probably a few thousand people infected with them at the moment in England.

“Whether Covid-19 will fit into that pattern or not, we will just have to wait and see but my guess is it will.”

The scientist predicted the number of cases of COVID-19 will soon “settle down”, due to the improved weather conditions with the change in season.

He said that if the virus were seasonal we will begin to see “the figures drop off”.

Dr Michael Skinner, Reader in Virology at Imperial College London, agreed that a “second wave” of the virus was likely.

He told the newspaper: “It could well slow down over the summer but I think most people anticipate that it’s likely that it will come back as a second wave.

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“It’s common for influenza to talk about one, two, or three waves and even back in 2009 we had two waves there as well.”

Dr Skinner said that whilst it was all conjecture, it was “hard to believe it will go away unless everyone has been infected and they are all immune”.

He said a proportion of those who escaped infection in the first wave “will be infected the second time round”.

But the scientist said coronavirus would soon fall into the bracket of “normal respiratory infections”, like the common cold and chest infections.

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He said: “In a few years time I think we will accept it’s there but it may well change and become less of a problem.”

A third expert warned the coronavirus is set to become an endemic, like chicken pox, that stays present in a community indefinitely.

Dr Amesh Adalja, a disease expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said coronavirus will be “with us for some time”.

He told Business Insider: “It’s endemic in human populations and not going to go away without a vaccine.”

The UK Government has warned up to a fifth of the workforce could go off sick during the peak of a coronavirus epidemic in the UK.

Boris Johnson warned it is “highly likely” the UK will see further infection, as the number of cases rose from 39 to 51 on Tuesday, and said the next phase of Government contingency planning will be focused on delaying the spread of the virus.

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