The COVID-19 pandemic will not disappear suddenly, and the risks are still mounting, said Wang Chen, one of China's top respiratory experts.
Wang, who's also the president of the Peking Union Medical College, one of China's top medical institutions, made the remarks at the students' graduation ceremony.
File photo of Wang Chen in an interview with CCTV on February 19./CGTN Screenshot
He said that compared with SARS, the novel coronavirus, named SARS CoV-2, is much more "clever".
"It's very difficult for us to predict what will happen next as for the virus and the pandemic," he said, as the virus has accelerated its mutation and evolution to get adapt to its new hosts – humans in different areas and countries.
Currently, different strains of the novel coronavirus are infecting people in different areas and are met with various kinds of interference, which could result in numerous results, according to the expert.
"What we can do is never to underestimate the complexity of the epidemic, nor be intimidated by it. We should fight against it using reliable scientific methods, which should be based on the knowledge of the virus and the infectious disease," he stressed.
"Our knowledge about the novel coronavirus and the epidemic is still very limited," he noted.
（Cover via VCG.）