Thread by @DrEricDing

Epidemiologist Dr. @larrybrilliant, who led smallpox global eradication, expressed concerns over new #SARSCoV2 variants and stressed need for a plan in addition to vaccines. “I’m quite worried—We seem to be getting variants of concern almost every week”.🧵
uk.news.yahoo.com/larry-brillian…

2) A coronavirus strain that originated in South Africa, for example, renders the AstraZeneca vaccine 90% ineffective, Brilliant pointed out. A variant first seen in Brazil can allow reinfection, and one that emerged in the United Kingdom is more transmissible.

3) “I do think we have to have a backup plan in addition to vaccinating everybody as fast as we can—get really much better at outbreak containment, detection, finding, isolating, & vaccinating them with the vaccine that matches the variant that our genomics tells us they have.”

4) Burnett asked if vaccine booster shots being developed against variants would be enough.
“I think it could be that the booster does it,” Brilliant replied. “I’m hopeful that there’ll be boosters that vaccinate us and immunize us for everything since the last vaccine we had.

5) But, in addition, we will have dozens of vaccines and some will match better against certain variants.”
Effectively matching the right vaccine to the right strain “will become more and more important” in future months, Brilliant predicted.

6) Indeed, @larrybrilliant is right, the #P1 variant especially is worrisome. It’s possibly the fastest transmission variant the world has seen - it is 2x to 2.5x as fast as the old common strain. and it has likely reinfection potential. See thread 🧵 below.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1378232936399577088