Why Scientists Say: ‘Do it, or current COVID vaccines will be useless within a year’

Scientists warn that humanity is not doing the COVID-19 vaccination at the rate it should continue or supplement it. Planet Earth may have a year or less before first-generation Covid-19 vaccines are ineffective and modified formulations are needed, reports The Guardian. The British daily reports the results of a survey carried out by epidemiologists, virologists and specialists in infectious diseases.

Scientists have long emphasized, according to The Guardian, that a global vaccination effort is needed to satisfactorily neutralize the threat of Covid-19.

If vaccination is not carried out at a satisfactory pace and manner, there is a threat of variations in the virus emerging and percolating through all strata of humanity – with such variations that some of them may be. more transmissible, fatal and less susceptible to disease. vaccines.

You have 9 months to get it right, humans!
The daily reports that the frightening and grim forecasts of a year or less come from two-thirds of respondents, according to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a coalition of organizations including Amnesty International, Oxfam and UNAIDS, which surveyed 77 scientists. from 28 countries. Many of these experts interviewed said that in order to succeed or fail at the global level, humanity has a time frame of nine months or less.

According to a report released by UNAIDS on March 10, 2021, since the start of 2021, high-income countries have on average citizens vaccinated at a dose of one dose per second. This is based on the average daily COVID-19 vaccination doses administered between January 1 and March 2, 2021 and was taken from OurWorldInData for countries classified as “ high income ” by the World Bank. Meanwhile, some of the poorest countries have yet to administer a single dose. The US, UK and EU are blocking proposals at the WTO to help poorer countries get vaccinated faster, says UNAIDS.

Cover all of humanity, otherwise vaccine resistant mutations may appear:
Persistent low immunization coverage in many countries would make the emergence of vaccine-resistant mutations more likely, said 88% of respondents, who work at illustrious institutions such as Johns Hopkins, Yale, Imperial College, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the University of Edinburgh.

“New changes are happening every day. Sometimes they find a niche that makes them fitter than their predecessors. These lucky variants could more efficiently transmit and potentially evade immune responses to previous strains, ”Gregg Gonsalves, associate professor of epidemiology at Yale University, said in a statement.

“Unless we vaccinate the world, we are leaving the playing field open to more and more mutations, which could produce variants that could escape our current vaccines and require booster shots to treat them.

The current crop of vaccines that have received emergency clearances in different parts of the world is a mix of old and new technologies.

Of particular interest is the mRNA approach, used by the companies Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna, which can be changed quickly (over a matter of weeks or months) to accommodate new variants – however, manufacturing hiccups are always a problem. potential problem.

The disparity in scope will ultimately affect all:
More importantly, they are unlikely to be within reach of the poorest countries, since this set of vaccines is much more expensive and requires relatively high temperature storage conditions.

Meanwhile, resource-rich countries like the UK and US have administered at least one dose of vaccine to more than a quarter of their populations and have secured hundreds of millions of supplies. In contrast, countries like South Africa and Thailand have failed to even get bullets in the arms of 1% of their population. Some countries have not yet administered their first dose.

Covax – the Global Vaccine Initiative coalition aimed at countering so-called vaccine nationalism – hopes to be able to deliver vaccines to at least 27% of the population in low-income countries by 2021.

Understand the urgency to vaccinate all adults by the summer:
“The urgency we see in rich countries to vaccinate their populations, targeting all adults by the summer, is simply not being reflected globally. Instead, Covax is aiming for maybe 27% by the end of the year if we can manage it – it’s just not enough, ”said Max Lawson, head of inequality policy at Oxfam and chairman of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, which calls on Covid-19 vaccine developers to openly share their technology and intellectual property to boost production.

“Where is the ambitious global goal? A goal that science tells us is necessary? I think that’s the key point – we just don’t see the ambition that would come with it, the widespread recognition that limited vaccination is quite dangerous.

Oxfam International Executive Director Gabriela Bucher said: “Globally two and a half million lives have already been lost due to this brutal disease and many countries are struggling without adequate medical care and vaccines. By allowing a small group of pharmaceutical companies to decide who lives and who dies, rich countries are prolonging this unprecedented global health emergency and putting countless more lives on the line. At this crucial time, developing countries need support , no opposition.

The Alliance warned that in South Africa, Malawi and other African countries, history is in danger of repeating itself. Millions of people died in the early 2000s because pharmaceutical monopolies had put effective treatments for HIV / AIDS out of reach for up to $ 10,000 a year.