Scientists say the world has reached a precarious level in Covid-19 pandemic, one where conditions are ripe for an increase in new coronavirus mutations that could trigger efforts to control on the disease.
The virus continues to spread rapidly in many parts of the world, even though sections of the population have acquired a degree of immunity as a result of being infected or vaccinated.
Scientists say that a combination – high levels of viral spread and a population with partial vaccinations – triggers various changes that may be more mobile or lethal. More spread means more chances for the virus to develop, they say.
“If everyone has immunity, you have almost no circulating virus and the virus cannot change,” said Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Bern, saying if no one is immune -in population, the virus is not stressed to evolution. “That middle part, where there is a partially vaccinated population, or a partially immune population with a high virus spread, that’s the kind of point of danger,” she said.
New changes could also reduce the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines and treatments and lead to relapse among people who have already passed Covid-19, scientists say. The key to alleviating these problems, they say, lies with social distance and other measures to reduce infection as well as ramping vaccine efforts, which have been lacking in many places.