WHO says 'false hope’ coronavirus will disappear in summer

World leaders should not assume COVID-19 will be seasonal and subside in the summer, like the flu, the World Health Organization said Friday, Report informs, citing CNBC.

"We have to assume that the virus will continue to have the capacity to spread," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's health emergencies program, said at the agency's headquarters in Geneva. "It's a false hope to say, yes, that it will disappear like the flu."

"We hope it does. That would be a godsend," Ryan added. "But we can't make that assumption. And there is no evidence."

Earlier in the outbreak, US health officials said there was a hypothesis among mathematical modelers that the disease "could potentially be seasonal" and relent in warmer conditions.