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International travel is expected to reopen slowly, with any traffic light system having the potential to “flee” to variants of Covid, a senior scientist said.
Professor Robin Shattock, head of mucosal infections and immunity at the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London, said an ideal scenario would be people being quarantined upon their return from any country – although this is probably not considered a practical option.
In a high-profile interview, he said it was possible for the coronavirus to become “much more of a pretty commonplace infection” for most people, while he was still not sure whether the entire population would need it. ‘be vaccinated again each winter.
Boris Johnson’s travel task force is due to report soon, with many expecting him to come up with an approach to traffic lights.
This ranks countries in red, orange, or green based on infection rates and the prevalence of Covid-19 variants in overseas destinations.
In an interview with the PA news agency, Professor Shattock said: ‘I suspect there will be pressure to restart international travel again, probably still with self-isolation / quarantine when you return to the UK .
“There may be some implementation of a program whereby if you have received the vaccine you are allowed to travel.
“I don’t know if it will necessarily be mandated by governments, but it could well be mandated by different carriers.
“Or you might find that different governments around the world have requirements in place, so the UK might not say you can’t travel without a vaccine, but if you go to a destination of holidays, they might say, “open it to people who have been vaccinated.”
“It’s a very fluid image. I am sure that in time we will start traveling abroad again.
“I think it’s going to be slow, I think it’s going to be safe and I don’t think it’s going to take off significantly until at least fall, when everyone has had, hopefully, one, if not two. , doses of a vaccine. “
Professor Shattock said the traffic light system is “one approach, but it’s going to be leaked,” because of the risk of importing worrisome variants that could affect the vaccines.
“There are always possibilities to get around this type of system. This may be a way to start freeing up some travel, but it will need to be watched very closely. “
He said the ideal scenario would be for people to self-quarantine when they arrive from any country.
“I think that would be the ideal scenario, but if it’s practical and if people will accept it… because it forces the law to say ‘this is what you have to do’. But people have to buy into it, otherwise it’s ineffective.
However, he said border controls “definitely make a difference,” adding: “If you opened up travel completely tomorrow and everyone could get in and out of the country, we would be in a much worse situation.
“So with everything it’s a nice balance. If you just had an aversion to risk, you would keep everything very, very small. But this is not necessarily acceptable or practical. “
On how the coronavirus may evolve, Professor Shattock believes it is possible that it will eventually become “much more of a fairly common infection” for the majority of the population.
“Then it’s more about continuing to protect vulnerable people, but it won’t be such a big issue,” he said.
“Variants are always a big question. But what is perhaps reassuring to a certain extent is that we don’t see variations unfolding in all kinds of different directions.
“What we are seeing with this current coronavirus is that it appears with the same mutations in different parts of the world, so it seems to converge rather than diverge.
“As most viruses evolve, they tend to evolve to be transmitted more easily, but less pathogenic, so less likely to cause serious disease.
“So there are two possibilities – it could become less of a threat over time or there could be new variants that we will have to catch up and strengthen (with vaccines) in the future.
“We just have to see how it plays out, but it’s certainly not a certainty that the entire population will need to be vaccinated year after year.
“I suspect it’s less likely in the years to come, although I think it’s likely that older people will need an annual vaccination.”
Professor Shattock is currently working on variants using self-amplifying RNA vaccine technology, which uses lower doses of RNA.
Its technology means vaccines can be adapted within weeks to accommodate all variants, although Professor Shattock is monitoring what could happen with future pandemics.
“The technology can be very easily adapted to any variation that might come our way… but we have our eye on something completely new (that) might come out and we need to be prepared for any eventuality.”
Regarding the risk of future pandemics, he said: “Certainly we scientifically recognize that this type of effect occurs more frequently.
“Covid has been a big wake-up call for the world, but in some ways making a vaccine for Covid-19 hasn’t been as difficult as people had predicted, which is a good thing.
“If something happens that is a more difficult challenge, what we call pandemic X, a completely unknown virus – we know a lot about coronaviruses – but something that we have never seen and there is not. from scientific experience, this would be a much greater threat and challenge to humanity.
As for Covid, it is possible to combine the flu shot with a vaccine against the virus, although “it will take some time to put it in place,” he said.
For now, he believes the UK is set to give booster shots this fall to deal with worrying variants, such as those originally identified in South Africa and Brazil.
“The unknowns are whether the variants will be able to circulate once everyone is vaccinated,” he said. “We really don’t know if it’s going to be a very small problem or a very big problem.
“Having a variant booster out of the box makes sense.
“The other thing we have no idea about is how long these vaccines will last – is it 12 months, is it 24 months? We collect this data in real time.
“If the protection is short-term, we need to have vaccines ready at least this winter to boost.
“Now, we may prepare them and they may not necessarily be necessary.”
He said it was not yet clear whether the entire population would need to be re-vaccinated or if doses would simply be needed for the elderly and most vulnerable.
“I think at the moment we don’t know,” he said. “The reason we don’t know is that some of these variants may not be protected at the antibody level as well, but we would also have T cell immunity, which is much broader and the variants are less likely to get around that.” . .
“One of the possibilities is that this safeguard, this immunity to T cells, could actually prevent you from being seriously ill and ending up in the hospital.
“If this is the case, you may not need to vaccinate the entire population, but it’s one of those tough decisions because we won’t know if it’s a problem until it is. not a problem.”
Professor Shattock said more data is needed on the effectiveness of existing vaccines against the variants, but “the real problem right now is that we just need to get everyone vaccinated so that the variants don’t become a problem. problem”.
He added: “I think if we get everyone vaccinated it will be a less worrying scenario.
“The real difficulty would be if we suddenly said, ‘oh, it’s okay’ and saw the variations take off in a spectacular fashion.
“So right now we are in a period where we need to get things done so that variant history is not a major issue.”
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