Variants v. Vaccines – Tomas Pueyo
Excellent article from Tomas Pueyo on the new COVID-19 variants:
In the race between the variants and the vaccines, the variants are the hare and the vaccines are the tortoise. We all know that, in the end, the vaccines will win. Like the tortoise. By this summer, in developed countries, vaccination rates will likely range between 50% and 80%. Since there will also be some herd immunity, and summer means outdoors in the Northern hemisphere, it’s likely that the pandemic will die down some time during the summer. The question is: Will they also be rolled out in time to prevent the new variants from taking over? Now we have our answer: Unfortunately, no.
TBH, though, I am not so sanguine about the results for the Northern hemisphere. With open borders, no mandatory quarantine, and the rest of the world suffering without sufficient access to vaccines, new variants will keep passaging and keep emerging, risking putting our vaccine progress back to square one. (via Cormac)(tags: tomas-pueyo virology covid-19 sars-cov-2 variants vaccines herd-immunity via:cormac)