Don’t expect the coronavirus to go away anytime soon – or never, warns a senior European Union official in a new prediction about the pandemic.
“It seems more likely to stay. It looks very well adapted to humans ”, said the head of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Andrea Ammon, in comments published recently. “It wouldn’t be the first virus that would stay with us forever, so it’s not an unusual feature for a virus.”
This is likely to be a somewhat disheartening observation for societies tired of isolation. However, Ammon hinted that vaccines and the mutation of the virus in different variants will change the nature of the public health crisis that has paralyzed the global economy and killed millions.
“The question is what does this mean in terms of changes in the virus to the vaccine’s effectiveness,” she told South China Morning Post. “It may happen that [the new coronavirus changes annually like the seasonal flu], or that at one point it remains stable and we can use a vaccine for a longer period. ”
The launch of vaccines in the United States and Europe has already been tested by the emergence of multiple variants, including at least one that the British authorities “associated with an increased risk of death compared to” the original form of the virus. South African officials have suspended plans to use a vaccine developed by Oxford and AstraZeneca due to doubts about whether the inoculant protects against mild infections.
Moderna and Pfizer, the companies that developed vaccines currently approved for use in the United States, recognized that the success of their vaccines varies depending on the variant of the virus. Moderna is “promoting an emerging variant reinforcement candidate” to strengthen people against the so-called South African variant, company officials said this week.
“One thing I want to emphasize is that those [vaccines] that have been tested are highly effective in preventing hospitalization and severe COVID, which is good news, ”said Anna Durbin, professor of international health at Johns Hopkins University, this week. “Which means that we can prevent hospitalizations, we can prevent death and severe COVID.”
This observation suggests that, as Ammon admits that “we must be prepared for him to remain with us”, it is the mild infections that can be most persistent.