Asian Insider video: What's next for the coronavirus?

WASHINGTON - What's next for the coronavirus?

The number of infections has snowballed to over 80,000 and spread to several countries beyond China - including the United States, Iran, Italy, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Nigeria and many more.

Georgetown University global health expert Dr Rebecca Katz spoke to Asian Insider about what life may be like as we learn to live with - and avoid - the Covid-19 coronavirus.

"We'll take any good news," she said on reports of a decrease in the number of new cases in China.

"You want to be as forthcoming as possible, but also acknowledging there is still a tremendous amount of uncertainty. If I had to hazard a guess, at this point, I believe that most likely this coronavirus will become ingrained in our communities, that we will see widespread cases around the world," she said.

"The fact the spreader transmission is being slowed by the extraordinarily aggressive measure that are being taken inside China is in many ways buying the rest of the world a lot of time. And my hope is with that time there will be advances in identifying possible therapeutics and get us closer to the development of a vaccine which will then change the course of how many people become infected and pass away," she told Asian Insider.

"I believe that the current measures that are being taken will slow the spread of disease. I don't think it will curtail it. But that's my guess at this point. We may get extraordinarily lucky," she said.

One of the biggest challenges in public health is trying to predict public behaviour, she said.

"If by late spring the coronavirus is widespread around the world, people may rethink mass gatherings, and change behaviour. Face masks on plane passengers for instance, could become the norm rather than the exception," she told Asian Insider.