The vast majority of respiratory viruses that spread within our population ebb and flow with the seasons.

Influenza spikes in the winter months, as do infections caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), adenoviruses and other coronaviruses. Earlier this year, Rochelle Walensky, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, said she expects COVID to also become a seasonal illness but whether or not that will come to be remains to be seen.

Most scientists agree that COVID isnt going anywhere, and that well be living with SARS-CoV-2 for decades, if not forever. Though we tend to see the biggest waves in the winter and early spring, COVID isnt seasonal yet. It doesnt retreat in the spring-to-summer off-season it is smoldering throughout the year.

COVID is steadily burning through the population as we speak. But it is also able to piggy back on top of our ebbs and flows of the typical cold and flu season, so its a double whammy, Mark Cameron , an infectious disease researcher at Case Western Reserve, told HuffPost.

Will COVID ever become a seasonal illness?

Andrew Noymer , an epidemiologist and demographer who studies infectious diseases at University of California, Irvine, expects COVID to become winter-dominant, like the flu, in the long run. SARS-CoV-2 is already somewhat seasonal and predictable in nature.

In the United States, all of the largest spikes have been in the winter, so it is kind of seasonal in that respect, Noymer said.

But, even between those peaks, the virus spreads at pretty significant levels. It hasnt totally settled into a seasonality. Many epidemiologists thought COVID would have already fallen into much more of a seasonal pattern by now but it hasnt.

A seasonal infectious disease is something that pops up predictably at the start of the cold and flu season and persists throughout that period of time, Cameron said.

Keep in mind, this is only our third 12-month period with COVID. The illness is still relatively new. Even though over half of the U.S. population has likely already had COVID, many have not and remain susceptible. Were all antsy for the virus to become predictable, but the virus is still just getting started, Noymer said. He suspects that one day maybe 10, 15 years from now well be looking at a very seasonal phenomenon.