According to recent papers produced by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), the emergence of a variant that evades immunizations is a “realistic probability,” says an article published in The Guardian.
Variant evolution
Sage is developing new vaccines that are more effective in limiting infection and transmission than current vaccines and more vaccine-production facilities in the UK and lab-based studies to predict variant evolution.
The New Threat
One of the greatest threats is the advent of a new variation, leading to considerably worse conditions. Prof Graham Medley, a Sage member and leader of the government’s Covid modeling group, said it was “clearly something that planners and scientists should take very seriously as it would put us back a long way.”
“It is not that different to the planning that needs to be done between pandemics – a new variant that was able to overcome immunity significantly would be essentially a new virus,” he added. “The advantage would be that we know we can generate vaccines against this virus – and relatively quickly. The disadvantage is that we would be back to the same situation we were in a year ago, depending on how much impact current immunity had against a new variant. Hopefully, evolution is slow, so that new variants arise that are only marginally evasive rather than one big jump.”
Immune-escape properties
Preventing the importation of variants of concern with “moderate to high immune-escape properties” would be critical, according to Dr. Marc Baguelin of Imperial College’s Covid-19 response team and a member of the government’s SPI-M modeling group.
“It is unlikely that such a new virus evades entirely all immunity from past infection or vaccines,” he stated. “Some immunity should remain at least for the most severe outcomes such as death or hospitalization. We would most likely be able to update the current vaccines to include the emerging strain. But doing so would take months and means that we might need to reimpose restrictions if there were a significant public health risk. The amount of restrictions would be a political decision and would need to be proportionate with how much this virus would evade current vaccines.”
No self-isolation
In England, fully vaccinated persons and children under the age of 18 will no longer be obliged to self-isolate if they come into close contact with someone who has Covid-19. They will be urged to do a PCR test instead, but they will not be obligated to do so.
Meanwhile, over the next week, all 16- and 17-year-olds will be offered the first vaccination dose to provide them with some protection before school resumes in September.
The contingency plan
Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former top adviser, has already asked for the government to publish a “variant escape vaccine contingency plan” and suggested that MPs investigate ways to compel ministers to do so. On the condition of anonymity, one scientist stated that the national risk assessment linked to Covid-19 contingency preparations should be made public.
The move has the support of Munira Wilson, the Liberal Democrat’s health spokesman. “It is critical that people have confidence in Boris Johnson’s Covid strategy and trust him not to repeat the same mistakes of the last 18 months,” she said. “Through refusing to self-isolate, breaking their own rules, and making mistakes that have cost lives, the government has lost public trust. Transparency is the only way to begin winning that trust back.”
Vaccine rollout
According to government sources, Public Health England and others kept an eye on the issue via quick surveillance and virus genome sequencing.
“We are committed to protecting the progress of the vaccine rollout, and our world-leading genomics capabilities are at the forefront of global efforts to stay ahead of variants, with over half a million samples genome-sequenced so far,” said a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson.
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Source: The Guardian
