A man wearing a face mask jogs past a tree at a park, as the country is hit by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, in Shanghai, China March 10, 2020. Picture taken March 10, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song

BEIJING (Reuters) - The global coronavirus pandemic is likely to be over by June, Zhong Nanshan, the Chinese government’s senior medical adviser, said on Thursday.

A lot of imported cases into China are asymptomatic patients and the re-infection rates among recovered patients is low, Zhong, an 83-year-old epidemiologist renowned for helping combat the SARS outbreak in 2003, told a news conference.