A disease expert in New Zealand said in an interview Wednesday that the coronavirus outbreak will “always be with us,” as countries across the globe deal with the threat of a second wave of infections.

“I don’t think we can eliminate the virus long term,” Simon James Thornley, an epidemiologist from the University of Auckland, told the New York Times. “We are going to have to learn to live with the virus.”

Back in April, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a coronavirus press briefing that the world may never return to the “normal” that was known before the outbreak.

He said that we will gradually come back to where we can function as a society again, but, even with a vaccine, the virus will be a looming threat.

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"When we get back to normal, we will go back to the point where we can function as a society,” he said.  He continued, “If you want to get back to pre-coronavirus, that might not ever happen in the sense that the threat is there.”