People wear medical masks as a precaution against coronavirus in central London. Tayfun Salci l Anadolu Agency l Getty Images

The world will have to learn to live with COVID-19 as the virus will be "with us permanently," a former Bank of England official told CNBC on Monday. Speaking to CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe," John Gieve, former deputy governor at the Bank of England, said policymakers had a "huge job" to stop businesses from just closing down. "The difficulty here is that people are making their own decisions, so the government might be saying: 'go to your bank, build up your debts', but some businesses will be thinking: 'well if I face three months of that I'm never going to be able to pay this back, so I'd better close down now,'" he said.

Policymakers, he suggested, would be looking at how they can sustain companies and "put (them) in cotton wool" ready for the eventual recovery. "That, economically, is the biggest problem, and of course it's very difficult because we don't know whether we're talking three months, six months," he added. "Clearly, COVID-19 is with us now permanently – that's something we've got to get used to over a period of years – but when the peak impact on the economy's going to be, I think that's still a bit unclear."

'Keep calm and carry on'