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It’s been a year since Covid-19 first shut down much of Europe, and signs of preparation for a post-pandemic world are everywhere. Whether it’s the heated discussion over vaccine passport, the UK starting on its latest path out of lockdown or investors dumping safe-haven assets, there’s faith that the most ambitious vaccination campaign in history is going to deliver a reopening of our economies this summer.
Plenty of supporting evidence bolsters that view, but there’s also debate over whether it really will be such a straight shot. The spread of variants more resistant to some existing vaccines is a potential cause for concern, given they might stall the lifting of restrictions or even undermine inoculation drives underway.
Some beliefs about acquired immunity from infection are being thrown into question. One trial last month suggested people who’ve recovered from the original SARS-CoV-2 have fallen sick again after encountering some variants. “I find that pretty sobering,†Danny Altmann, an immunology professor at Imperial College London, tells me.
None of this should put us back to square one. But it’s clear policy makers need to start to prepare for the risk of recurring Covid-19 surges, whether by ordering special second-generation vaccines, changing how current doses are deployed or getting creative for how we can ratchet up supply.
No wonder Austria’s Sebastian Kurz and Denmark’s Matte Frederiksen flew to Israel this week to strike a vaccine partnership with Benjamin Netanyahu, whose ability to secure doses and deploy them has led the world. The three countries have regularly shared information on the pandemic as an informal alliance, leading to some sniping from the European Union gallery. The EU is also rolling out its own project to invest in and manufacture variant-targeting vaccines. But there’s likely more side deals to come if the bloc’s plans to ramp up production and distribution don’t bear fruit soon.
It makes sense to turbocharge the vaccine pipeline. Apparently it’s not too hard to adapt an existing Covid-19 vaccine to target a specific variant, especially when using the groundbreaking messenger-RNA (mRNA) technology. Moderna Inc last month shipped doses of a booster shot specifically designed to target the B.1.351 variant identified in South Africa. Yet each new type of shot will add an extra lap to an already messy race for limited supply.
—Bloomberg