FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — The COVID-19 vaccine was initially thought to give people immunity. But, as time has passed, we have learned that’s not the case.

Allen County Health Commissioner, Dr. Matthew Sutter, said that people will start to learn to live with COVID existing.

It will circulate just like the flu.

“Unfortunately it’s not looking good for herd immunity,” Dr. Sutter said. “So, early in the pandemic there was hope that if we got people vaccinated quickly enough or enough people got infected quickly enough and that combination might get us to a point where the virus that causes COVID-19 will really stop circulating. And I don’t think very many people are hopeful for that at this point. I think the most likely thing is that it will turn into something much more like the flu, influenza, where it just circulates and we learn how to live with it.”

WANE 15 asked Dr. Sutter, if things were always going to stay the same way they are now?

“I think things will continue to evolve, if you look at the 1918 flu pandemic what you saw was big outbreaks and the numbers of people dying for the several years after 1918. Dr. Sutter said. If you look at the cemeteries in the areas around here, you’ll see a lot of deaths in 1921 and 1922, those are from after shocks of big pandemic that hit the large cities. I think that it is reasonable to say that COVID-19 will run a similar course,” said Dr. Sutter.