A Covid-19 expert is warning there's still "a few more years left" to endure of the devastating pandemic.
Otago University evolutionary biologist and virologist Jemma Geoghegan this morning told Breakfast the coronavirus has adapted and changed a lot over the past year and a half, with new variants popping up around the world.
"On the one hand, I agree that I don't think that we're even half way through this pandemic. I think we've got a few more years left of it," she said.
"But on the other hand, where countries have done a huge, really successful vaccine rollouts our numbers are dropping."
Geoghegan said it goes to show the vaccines are effective, but she said there needs to be a global, not national, effort to stamp out the virus.
"Everyone around the world needs to be vaccinated and ensure that those vaccines are going to be effective means stopping the spread of the virus.
"I think we do forget what it's like to be going though an outbreak. I think, apart from Auckland, the rest country has really had relative freedom, to be honest, and it's really easy to forget.
"We don't know what it's like to live with this virus on a day-to-day basis so I think complacency really is a dangerous, dangerous thing that we need to overcome."
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