How We’ll End the Pandemic, Even if More Variants Appear

We know it’s not exactly what you’d like to hear, but new COVID-19 variants will most likely emerge until we’re all either vaccinated, or we’ve dealt with the virus.

Dr. Andrew Freedman, from the Cardiff University Medical School, stated that “Until the whole world is vaccinated, not just rich Western countries, I think we are going to remain in danger of new variants coming along, and some of those could be more virulent than omicron.”

As they evolve, viruses get milder, but that’s not what’s always happening. The future variants could be more contagious.

As of now, 58.6% of people all over the world have received at least one dose of the vaccine. 9.28 billion doses were administered all over.

The majority of the adults in the US and Western Europe are vaccinated, and many countries started to vaccine teens and young children. However, we can’t say the same about low-income countries, as only 8.5% of people have received at least one of the doses.

Ever since we first started to receive the vaccines, WHO has advised rich countries to donate excess vaccines to the COVAX initiative. COVAX is an international program that has the goal to ensure that everyone has access to the vaccines. And it seems that we won’t leave the pandemic behind unless everyone is protected.

Danny Altmann, professor at Imperial College London, stated: “I can’t emphasize sufficiently that there’s no escaping that logic. This isn’t altruism or aid or anything, this is the global escape strategy from something that we’re all suffering together. Unless we can share out the vaccines and produce enough vaccines for everybody, the next variant is just around the corner.”

These Covid vaccines protect people against severe symptoms, hospitalization and death, and they have the potential to save millions of lives.