It will take years to understand the full impact of Covid-19

Top l-r: Andrew Hayward, Susan Michie, Deenan Pillay. Bottom l-r: Dame Anne Johnson, Vivienne Parry OBE - We may not fully understand the long term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic for a decade, according to some of UCL's leading Coronavirus experts. Speaking during the live finale of our Coronavirus: The Whole Story podcast , Professor Dame Anne Johnson, Professor Deenan Pillay, Professor Susan Michie and Professor Andrew Hayward joined science writer and broadcaster Vivienne Parry OBE to look back at lessons learned and then forwards to the future. Professor Johnson said: "In this country we have had a bad pandemic - we've had a very high death rate - but now we have a very high vaccination rate, so we're not going to know for a decade or more what the real outcome of this terrible pandemic is going to be in the long term." Professor Pillay added: "This is not a question of whether Covid-19 will still be around (in a few years). I expect there will be circulation of this virus, so what I'm imagining is that in a year and in five years' time we would have a different level of tolerance of constraints, whether it is infection control, the way we run our lives, or travel. "I think there are some things that are not going back to normal, and I think that's where we will be as long as these viruses are in the world. And I can imagine that these viruses will still be in the world in five years' time." Professor Hayward said: "In the long term, five or ten years, it (Covid-19) will start to circulate with flu and it will become one of the other respiratory viruses that we have to contend with each year.