New COVID variants have changed the game, and vaccines will not be enough

April 05, 2021

Members of the Lancet Commission's Task Force on NPIs, including Prof. Yanis Ben Amor, recently published a piece in The Conversation on the urgency of "maximum suppression" for countering the rise of new COVID variants.

"At the end of 2020, there was a strong hope that high levels of vaccination would see humanity finally gain the upper hand over SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In an ideal scenario, the virus would then be contained at very low levels without further societal disruption or significant numbers of deaths. 

But since then, new “variants of concern” have emerged and spread worldwide, putting current pandemic control efforts, including vaccination, at risk of being derailed. 

Put simply, the game has changed, and a successful global rollout of current vaccines by itself is no longer a guarantee of victory..."

Read the full article at The Conversation.

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