Faheem Younus, the award-winning clinician of the University of Maryland, has predicted that COVID-19 could come to an end by April 2021. As someone who has been studying the pandemic intensely, the expert thinks COVID-19 will burn out soon. He presents a set of reasons to drive home his point:

Actual infections and cross-immunity are higher than counted at present.

Masks and social distancing will reduce the R <1.

More tests and treatments (medical interventions will obviously improve the situation, as data from various countries has already shown).

Select populations get vaccinated (this is based on the assumption that there will be a vaccine soon).

Herd immunity will be achieved faster than expected if the above scenarios play out. They will go into slowing down the outbreak and the pandemic dies out.

However, the expert is skeptical about the above scenario. He says that the pandemic might drag into 2022. Why? Read on...

Businesses and schools will be opened and the virus spread continues.

Flu mixes with COVID-19 in winter.

Weak testing and tracing systems (in some countries).

Politics influences policy (a broad point that Younus is talking about).

Vaccine getting delayed (which is very much possible).

People losing patience.

If the above scenarios play out, feels Younus, COVID-19 will continue its asymmetric spread during 2021.