Covid variants will be the next big challenge. Can vaccines protect us?

[Northerner]

All viruses mutate. They do this to adapt and survive better in their specific host. The virus that causes Covid-19 is no different: it has moved from the animal realm, where it most likely originated in bats, to the human world. Since then, scientists have been locked in a battle between the spread of the virus and the ability to immunise against it. We now have the vaccines to protect us against Covid-19 – but what happens when this virus mutates further, as it likely will?

As lockdown restrictions ease, south London has already seen a cluster of new cases related to the South African variant. Over the next six months, dealing with emerging variants will be one of the major challenges that scientists face. Some vaccines show promising signs of coping with new variants – the mRNA vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna seem to offer some protection against the variants first identified in Kent and South Africa. Most virologists think that Covid-19 vaccines will protect against severe disease and death, even in people who have been infected by a mutated strain of the virus.

Will Covid vaccines protect us against new variants? | Julian Tang

Outbreaks such as the South African variant that’s emerged in south London will require constant vigilance as lockdown eases, says clinical virologist Julian Tang

www.theguardian.com

 

[nonethewiser]

I expect we'll be having an annual Covid-19 jab alongside the the flu jab, both of them reformulated every year according to which variants are in circulation, for years to come and possibly forever.

Expect same, for good few years anyway not sure about forever, hoping not.

 

[mikeyB]

Looking at Brazil and India, @nonethewiser, forever is a better bet.