There's a surprise: Covid unlikely to mutate into deadlier variant

The woman who created the Oxford vaccine has said Covid is unlikely to mutate into a much deadlier variant and will eventually just cause the common cold.

Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert said 'there aren't very many places for the virus to go to have something that will evade immunity but still be a really infectious virus'.

She said viruses tend to 'become less virulent as they circulate' through the population, adding: 'There is no reason to think we will have a more virulent version of Sars-CoV-2'.

Dame Sarah said the virus which causes Covid-19 will eventually become like the coronaviruses which circulate widely and cause the common cold. 

Speaking at a Royal Society of Medicine seminar, Dame Sarah said: 'We already live with four different human coronaviruses that we don't really ever think about very much and eventually Sars-CoV-2 will become one of those.

The 59-year-old led the team at Oxford University's Jenner institute which created the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, the most widely distributed jab in the world.