Key Highlights:
- According to a study it is “almost certain” that a SARS-Cov-2 variation would develop, leading to “current vaccination failure.”
- Several firms that manufacture Covid-19 vaccines are already conducting research to handle new variations.
- The chance of this occurring is unclear, but such a variation would constitute a substantial danger.
Inevitable New Variant
According to a study conducted by British academics and released by the UK Government’s official scientific advisory body, it is “almost certain” that a SARS-Cov-2 variation would develop, leading to “current vaccination failure.” SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes Covid-19.
The study has not been peer-reviewed, the early research is speculative, and there is no evidence that such a variation is now in use. Documents like this one are made public “as pre-print publications that have provided the government with rapid evidence during an emergency.”
Because eradication of the virus is “unlikely,” the scientists have “high confidence” that variations will continue to arise. According to them, it is “almost certain” that there will be “a gradual or punctuated accumulation of antigenic variation that eventually leads to current vaccination failure.”
Avoiding a vaccine-resistant Strain
They advise authorities to maintain limiting viral transmission as much as possible in order to prevent the possibility of a new, vaccine-resistant strain. They also advocate for more research into novel vaccinations that not only prevent hospitalization and illness but also “induce high and durable levels of mucosal immunity.”
They argue that the objective should be to “reduce the likelihood of variant selection in vaccinated people” as well as reduce the likelihood of infection of and transmission from vaccinated individuals. Several firms that manufacture Covid-19 vaccines are already conducting research to handle new variations.
The opinions were presented in a document written by a “group of academics on possibilities for the longer-term development of SARS-CoV-2,” which was examined and published by the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).
A Substantial Danger
Some variations that have developed in recent months “show a decreased sensitivity to vaccine-acquired immunity, albeit none appears to escape entirely,” they write. They do warn, however, that these variations appeared “before vaccination was widely used,” and that “as vaccines become more widely used, the transmission advantage obtained by a virus that can resist vaccine-acquired immunity would increase.”
This is a problem that SAGE has previously warned about.
SAGE experts stated in meeting minutes from July that “the combination of high prevalence and high doses of vaccination establishes the conditions under which an immunological escape variation is most likely to emerge.” At the time, it stated that “the chance of this occurring is unclear, but such a variation would constitute a substantial danger both in the UK and internationally.”
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