British experts warn that the pandemic could last an extra year if there is an immune variant to the vaccine.
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British ministers are being forced by the public to say what their plans are for a Coivd-19 variant that is immune to current vaccines. Conformable The Guardian, the call of citizens comes after scientific advisers say that such a possibility will delay the fight against the pandemic by at least a year.
Recent work by the government’s group of scientific advisors (Sage) in the UK has suggested that the emergence of a variant that is immune to the vaccine would be a “real possibility”. Sage also says it supports ongoing research into vaccines that reduce infection and transmission even more than current serums.
A variant of coronavirus that is immune to the vaccine is like a new virus
The risks are highlighted and highlighted by scientists. Prof Graham Medley of the group of advisers says that it is “definitely something that researchers should take very seriously because it can delay us a lot”.
“It’s not very different from the planning that has to take place between pandemics – a new variant that could overcome immunity would be practically a new virus,” Medley said. “The advantage would be that we know that we can generate vaccines against this virus and pretty quickly practically. The downside is that we would be in the same situation we were a year ago, depending on how much immunity we will have against the new variant. Let’s hope that the evolution is slow, so that the new variants are only a little more evasive, not suddenly immune to the vaccine “.
Preventing the import of such variants is paramount
Dr. Marc Baguelin says that preventing the importation into the country of worrying variants with “moderate to high immunization escape properties is essential, because we could have future waves of an even greater magnitude than we have had before.”
“It is unlikely that these new variants will completely escape the immunity acquired through disease or vaccination. Part of the immunity should remain at least to prevent the most severe cases such as death or hospitalization. Most likely we will be able to update the current vaccines to combat the variants that appear.
However, doing so takes several months and means that we must re-impose restrictions if there is a significant risk to public health. How many restrictions will be decided by politicians and the share will have to be proportional to how much this new virus is immune to current vaccines “, Dr. Baguelin also transmits.
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