Geert Vanden Bossche : The Variants are Evolving
Some of the key points to emerge from the interview were as follows:
- Vanden Bossche argues that we are seeing ever more variants associated with the global mass vaccination program.
- These are applying ever more selection pressure on a very specific area (the receptor binding domain) of the spike protein.
- This evolution of immune escape variants causes incomplete sterilization of the virus in infected people, offering ever greater opportunities for evolution under this highly specific immune pressure.
- The consequence, as articulated by molecular epidemiologists, could be ever more variants (a ‘pandemic of variants’ — with a risk that more lethal, more transmissible and vaccine resistant variants will emerge).
There’s already ample evidence from the latest Public Health England data that ever younger populations are being affected and that transmissibility is increasing despite the northern summer conditions.
Fortunately mortality so far associated with the delta variant (B.1.617.2 ) appears considerably less than the alpha variant (B.1.1.7 [‘UK’]). There’s also an increased risk that mutants might emerge that enlarge the non-human host range.
- Vanden Bossche argues we’re now in the ‘calm before the storm’ — all the signals that suggest the next wave in the autumn will present a greater risk are already in preprint scientific publications.
