Tuesday 30 March 2021

It Always Seemed Likely?

Given the very nature of a viral pandemic, it has always seemed obvious the first generation of vaccines for Sars-CoV-2, will have limited lives. Watching growing totals of people getting first and subsequent jabs on TV news reports, may reassure but it's not an irreversible process. Viruses proliferate in infected individuals (and animals?) in extraordinary numbers. Mutations occur on a regular basis. People in many parts of the world, will remain unvaccinated for months (if not, years). The world is interconnected, so the inevitably-arising, new mutations will spread from one area to another. If you wanted an expert view, the People's Vaccine Alliance have surveyed 77 Epidemiologists, Virologists and Infectious Disease specialists from more than 20 countries (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/30/new-covid-vaccines-needed-within-year-say-scientists). The survey revealed that two thirds of the specialists, thought new Covid-19 vaccines would be needed in a year or less. A third of respondants thought we had a maximum of 9 months, before having to bring in changed formulations. Although the new mRNA vaccines can be tweaked relatively quickly, they are a) expensive and b) require storage at low temperatures. Both features suggest they will be of limited utility in poor and remote parts of the world. This virus isn't going anywhere soon. It's going to be vaccine tweak after vaccine tweak after vaccine tweak (as is the case for seasonal 'flu). Makes 'vaccine passports' rather problematic?

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