COVID-19 is here to stay as lesser threat, warn scientists amid concerns over variants

With new emerging variants of COVID-19, scientists have warned that the virus is here to stay and have further noted that it has become clear that the new strains can slip past of the immunity generated by vaccines and prior infections. According to the Washington Post, the scientists said that the vaccines may have to be updated, perhaps regularly and the researchers will also have to remain vigilant. They also added that the world will also have to prepare for the possibility, even the likelihood, that over the long term, the novel COVID-19 will become persistent disease threat - one that could eventually end up closer to the flu or the common cold. Health experts have noted that in countries such as Brazil, South Africa and the UK, where fearsome “variants of concern” have emerged, possessing the ability to spread more efficiently or evade aspects of the immune response. Scientists are also grappling with preliminary evidence that people with a previous infection were susceptible to reinfection with a variant, as well as a growing body of data that many vaccines are less efficacious against the variant. 

"This has tremendous implications . . . in terms of what you can expect with future resurgences of the virus, in terms of how long the virus will continue - and for all intents and purposes, SARS-CoV2 virus, covid-19, is likely to be with us during the course of our lifetimes," Shabir A. Madhi, a professor of vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

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Shabir A. Madhi, a professor of vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said that this has “tremendous implications”, in terms of what one can expect with future resurgences of the virus, in terms of how long the virus will continue and for all intents and purposes, COVID-19, is likely to be with us during the course of our lifetimes. However, several experts also believe that the crisis phase of the pandemic will recede. They have said that they would with the novel coronavirus will feel markedly different as the threat of health or hospitalisation diminishes. 

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Vaccination campaigns need to ‘accelerate’ 

Health experts say that the threat posed by the coronavirus will attenuate as immunity builds up in the human population, chiefly through vaccinations that work best at preventing the severe outcomes that threaten to overwhelm hospitals and kill people. They have noted that the most hopeful signal has come from a one-shot vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, which shoed strong protection against severe disease from the variant, even though it offered less-robust protection against moderate illness. Further, scientists also thing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine may also protect against severe illness caused by the variant, but they currently lack the data to draw any conclusions.

Scientists, however, are still hesitant to make firm predictions, given how many surprises the pandemic has produced during the past year, but many also believe that even the current generation of vaccines will go a long way to restoring normalcy. Moncef Slaoui, a former chief science adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said that he doesn’t think the society will open as the world is always going to have colds or some other disease. The health experts agree that vaccination campaigns need to accelerate and they also need to prepare for what will happen as the virus spreads and acquired new mutations. 

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