Thread by @JeremyFarrar

Finland detects UK & SA variants. As immune pressure on virus grows, evolution will speed up & any variants that escape that immunity will have selective advantage. Both variants huge worry, variant described SA, may already evade mAbs, variant UK more transmissible

We have to reduce transmission through physical distancing, public health measure, masks, handwashing, behaviour, infection control, plus T-T-I, treatments & vaccines. And these tools available globally.
theguardian.com/world/live/202…

Making Tests,Treatments,Vaccines available globally is a moral imperative. It is a scientific imperative.If not variants that may escape immune control via infection/vaccination that arise in one part world will reverberate everywhere. Truly no one is safe until we are all safe

World is playing with fire, & does not control the evolutionary path of a virus circulating at this level & under this pressure globally. 2021 may be less predictable than 2020. Is in our hands reduce transmission,use all tools equitably & as an urgent public heath imperative.

Mutations in receptor binding domain (RBD) in S Africa described variant a massive wakeup call on just how plastic Spike RBD can be. All vaccines & mAb treatments target this single protein.

This pandemic is not over, having vaccines & treatments only helpful if available to all & used urgently and before further evolution & evasion of protective immunity. Also critical that work on second generation treatments & vaccines progresses urgently.

And that needs to be funded. The ACT-A is still scrabbling around for the money to do the R&D, Manufacturing & Distribution. Have to speed up availability Tests, Treatments, Vaccines, Oxygen, PPE, - globally.

Plus invest second generation vaccines/treatments. Not impossible to imagine interventions only targeting Spike Protein rendered much less effective in months/years to come. Variants driving increased transmission & possible immune escape already circulating. Will not be the last