That is the blunt message put forward by Wimmera-born biosecurity expert Dr Rob Grenfell, who has spent the past year studying COVID-19 at the CSIRO.

At a webinar hosted by the Horsham Rural City Council, Dr Grenfell laid out a picture of what the next few years will look like in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, starting with the vaccine rollout and how the virus will be treated once a sufficient level of immunity has been maintained.

Since the pandemic began, Dr Grenfell, the director of health of biosecurity business at CSIRO, has led a team of around 50 scientists working to develop potential vaccines.

Dr Grenfell's team at the Australian Institute for Infectious Diseases played a crucial role in the pre-trial testing of various COVID-19 vaccines, which Dr Grenfell said was a global effort.

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"You look at the normal development time of vaccines and it usually takes about 10 or 20 years," he said.

"The question I get asked a lot is how did we get this done so fast? We didn't actually start this race at the beginning. We have been working for the last couple of decades, and my team has certainly been working very closely on SARS and MERS with research collaborators globally.

"They are coronaviruses and COVID-19 is a coronavirus. So really we already had an understanding of things that did and didn't work and also how we could study a particular virus like this. We were prepared to actually do this."

During the webinar, Dr Grenfell gave an overview of the science behind the COVID-19 virus and the related family of coronaviruses.

The former Natimuk GP said it was clear that eventually, COVID-19 would come to Australia, foreseeing a future where a fully vaccinated population would treat the disease similar to the flu.

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"This virus is coming to this country, it is going to establish itself and we are going to have to learn to live with it," he said.

"We cannot live in a state of isolation from the rest of the world. I do believe that we can bring this current incursion under control, but we can not do that forever.

"We have to get over the idea that we are going to be COVID-free for very much longer, which means if you have no immunity, you will have to get that immunity."

Dr Grenfell also addressed vaccine hesitancy and provided risk profiles of catching COVID-19 as opposed to getting vaccinated.

"One of the important numbers to remember, if you are over 75 and catch COVID, you have a one in nine chance of dying. I am not talking sick, I am talking dying," he said.

"If you are 50 and you catch COVID, you have a one in 90 chance of dying.

"If you are over 30, you have a one in 900 chance of dying.

"That is the reason I had the vaccine. A one in 90 chance of dying, knowing that it will come here and establish here - I don't want to catch it.

"The most vulnerable in our community are the most likely to get seriously ill and die from this and that is why we are targeting them."

Despite two deaths in Australia related to blood clotting from the AstraZeneca vaccine, Dr Grenfell said the alternative, uncontrolled spread through an unvaccinated population, would be far worse.

"The figures released today (June 10) by the chief health officer are actually really good. Now we have a good understanding about the clot risk from AstraZeneca. The clot risk from AstraZeneca is one in 100. That is not dying," he said.

"We have had sadly two deaths from clotting related to AstraZeneca, but that is half a person per million. I want you to understand what risk looks like. We sadly lose five Australians every year per 100,000 people.

"The death, which is what we need to look at from AstraZeneca, is 100 times less likely than being killed in a car accident. This is really, really rare."

Statistics from the vaccine rollout in the United States show a higher risk of being killed by lightning than vaccine-related blood clots.

"The advice from Hematologist colleagues of mine had said they recommend either vaccine at all of their patients. That depends on your age group, so for over 50s it is the AstraZeneca and for under 50s it is the Pfizer. Clots are not a contraindication," he said.

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Dr Grenfell also presented data that showed how the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines are still effective against different variants of COVID-19.

"What is pleasing to say is that we have found the vaccines we are using in Australia still develop an immune response to COVID-19 variants," he said.

"In the UK in particular, they have found that anybody that has the two doses of AstraZeneca or Pfizer is not going to get hospitalised from the Delta variant, which is very good news for us.

"That is what effectiveness looks like.

"Variants will continue to appear. It is quite clear that we will need generation two vaccine and then generation three vaccines, probably six months apart, until the world situation changes.

"We are in for a ride here and we need to prepare ourselves for that," he said.

However, Dr Grenfell stressed the importance of getting the vaccine as soon as possible and not waiting for a potential future "booster" vaccine.

In the recovery from COVID-19, the lessons of good hygiene and social distancing will still need to be maintained.

Dr Grenfell said a post-COVID Australia might resemble the response to tuberculosis, where strategic isolation and quarantine were still maintained when necessary.

"COVID marshals are going to be part of our life. We are going to have QR codes and we are going to have to be drawn apart from each other," he said.

"Many things will have to change. After the Spanish influenza the society did change. People avoided each other and avoided large crowds for three to five years."

To see the entire webinar, visit Horsham Rural City Council's Facebook page.

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