Researchers warn of premature easing of Covid-19 restrictions

Relaxing restrictions on Covid-19 could pave the way for new vaccine-resistant viral mutations – according to researchers at the University of East Anglia and the Earlham Institute.

A new article published today warns of premature easing of Covid-19 restrictions.

He describes how we are in an “arms race” with the virus and how the increase in cases could provide opportunities for him to evolve into even more transmissible variants.

Researchers fear that any new variant will be more virulent, more resistant to vaccines and more dangerous to children and vulnerable groups such as transplant patients.

Senior author and editor-in-chief of Virulence, Professor Kevin Tyler of the Norwich Medical School, UEA, said: “Over the past 17 months, economies, education and mental well-being have taken a huge toll. suffered from restrictions imposed in an attempt to stem the spread. of the pandemic.

“Although vaccines have weakened the link between infection and mortality, they should not be used as an argument to justify a broad policy change for countries experiencing an exponential increase in the number of infections.

“This is because most of the world’s population is still unvaccinated, and even in countries with effective immunization programs, a significant proportion of society, especially children, is still unprotected.

“Relaxing restrictions stimulates transmission and allows the viral population to grow, which improves its evolutionary adaptive potential and increases the risk of emergence of vaccine-resistant strains through a process known as antigen drift.

“Simply put, limiting the spread of Covid-19 as much as possible restricts the number of future deaths by limiting the rate at which new variants appear.

“Successive variants of SARS-CoV-2 such as the Alpha and Delta variants have moved each other since the outbreak.

“Slowing the rate of emergence of new variants requires us to act quickly and decisively, reducing the number of people infected, including vaccinated children, and in combination with other public health policies.

“In most cases, children are not vaccinated against Covid-19 because the risk for them of becoming seriously ill is very low. But new strains can evolve with higher transmissibility in children, and vaccination of children may become necessary to control the emergence of new variants.

“In other words, a policy of easing restrictions while children are not vaccinated risks inadvertently selecting virulent variants which are better able to infect children and are also more problematic in vulnerable groups.” .

“Children may be particularly at risk because they are the only group that has not been vaccinated. But there is no guarantee that the virus will not develop the ability to infect children as well, and the data shows that new variants are relatively more often found in younger age groups.

“It is only when a large part of the world’s population is vaccinated or has acquired immunity to infection that we can relax other social measures.

Co-lead author and evolutionary biologist Professor Cock Van Oosterhout of the UEA School of Environmental Sciences said: “We have an arms race on our hands.

“On the human side, the arms race is being waged with vaccines, new technologies such as the NHS Covid-19 app and our behavior change, but the virus is responding by adapting and evolving.

“We are unlikely to advance in this arms race unless we can drastically reduce the size of the virus population.

“But given that the infection rate is about the same now as in the first wave, we’re pretty much ‘on par’ with this virus.

And like many other co-evolving arms races, there are no winners.

“This is what evolutionary biologists mean when we say coevolution is a ‘zero-sum game’. But what you can’t do is suddenly let your guard down in the middle of an arms race. This gives your opponent – the virus – a real advantage. We must therefore continue to do what we have been doing for the past 18 months, especially in countries where the number of infected people is increasing.

“Handing over public health measures to personal responsibility is a laissez-faire approach that many governments are now taking to managing Covid-19.

“During the exponential transmission of the virus, we need a permanent and mandatory public health policy that includes social distancing and the mandatory wearing of face masks in crowded indoor spaces such as shops and public transport.

“Our current vaccination programs alone will not end the pandemic and scientific evidence suggests that we can only safely begin to relax social restrictions when the R number is less than one,” he said. added.

Professor Neil Hall, co-author and director of the Earlham Institute (EI), said: “As long as there are large numbers of unvaccinated people around the world transmitting the virus, we are all at risk.

“A high number of Covid-19 cases increases the likelihood that the virus will evolve to become more virulent, more transmissible or able to escape vaccines. It is essential that we continue to use public health measures to reduce transmission rates. We must coexist with caution – if we ignore global health policies that have been shown to reduce infection, the virus will adapt more.

“When we assess the benefits and risks of vaccinating young people, we must also consider the impact on society at large. The current approach to protecting young people seems to allow them to achieve herd immunity. through infection. Every day this approach continues, putting us on top of the virus and prolonging this pandemic – increasing the burden on health systems and economies. “