Coronavirus variants and efficacy of vaccines

Thank you @bobmillstt on @TalkRadio appreciate your compliments yesterday.

It is the normal, natural history of RNA virus, such as the SARS-CoV-2 virus to make mistakes as it replicates and lead to emergence of new strains.

The new variants are not more severe disease causing, they maybe more infectious, however, this does not imply we have to drop our infection control guard & prevention of infection measures.

The rise in case number may be multifactorial, a combination of a more infectious strain coupled with human behaviours too.

The vaccines are expected to work against the variants & if they do not, it is not a tall order to reformulate the vaccines to mirror the current circulating strains.

The end game has several scenarios and all are worth considering and bringing into play where we can.

1. Elimination via the vaccines route, difficult and maybe a long term goal.

2. The virus mutates and becomes so innocuous that it is in circulation but only causes mild disease, this too can be the end game, it will take years if it is to happen as the SARS-CoV-2 is pretty stable and does not have huge mutations all the time, the emergence of new strains mentioned above is an unusual but not wholly unexpected exception.

Talk Radio Bob Mills 28 12 2020 1305 hrs.