New variants could lead to greater surge
THE implications of new variants of the coronavirus, detected in the UK and South Africa, are potentially grave for the US.
Although the new variants do not appear to be more lethal or more able to evade vaccines, the epidemiological data in recent weeks strongly suggests that the virus is more transmissible by 50% or so.
In the US, that could lead to a surge like nothing yet seen. It makes the vaccine roll-out more urgent than ever.
How much of a surge? On a seven-day rolling average, Britain had 210 new cases per million people on December 3. On Monday, it had 773.
Los Angeles hospitals are already at capacity. In October, California was reporting 106 cases per million.
On Monday, it was at 978. If the virus ratchets up new infections at the speed it has in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, US hospitals will be swamped and many more people will suffer and die.
The new variants appear to have genetic mutations that make them more contagious, perhaps with higher viral loads or improvements in the spike protein that latches on to human cells. It is not yet clear how the genetic changes actually work in the virus.
But what is evident in epidemiological data from the UK is that transmission is accelerating, even when regions are under lockdown, indicating that it is not being driven solely by careless human behaviour.
This is a real threat to the US, where the pandemic is out of control and basic mitigation efforts such as masks still evoke resistance.
Fighting the new variants will require all the mitigation efforts already used, and then some. Europeans are already extending and tightening lockdowns.
It has been suggested that stretching out vaccination doses or giving people two different vaccines at different times, might protect more people sooner.
But it seems risky to gamble on new approaches not yet verified by clinical trials.
At the same time, a high priority must be to start clinical trials for alternative vaccination strategies, which might prove worthwhile before long. Smaller studies needn’t take forever. The goal must be to make the best use of every available tool to slow the pandemic.
The appearance of the new variants means that time is of the essence, even more so than before.