New Covid variants
SIR – Surprise, surprise – in the run-up to Christmas a new variant of coronavirus has appeared, just like last year. It may obviously be way more dangerous than previous variants and the current vaccines may not work against it.
So, with a heavy heart, the Prime Minister will implement Plan B, with a full Christmas lockdown to protect us all until a new vaccine can be created. And so it goes on… ad infinitum. Graham Low
Threapwood, Cheshire
SIR – It may be that the world is a little tired of trying to help Africa. The continent is roughly 2 per cent vaccinated, though here in Botswana we are doing somewhat better. However, a global effort to help vaccinate less fortunate nations is an absolute necessity to cope with Covid.
Whether this new variant evades current vaccines is not yet determined but if the microbe is left to its own devices to spread and evolve at leisure in Africa then we cannot ignore the possibility that it may well mutate into an even more terrible threat to the whole world.
Charles Lonsdale
Gaborone, Botswana
SIR – Just as we had appeared to be breaking the back of Covid a new, potentially more deadly, variant has been identified in Africa. It may be too late and this variant may be on the march.
This incident once again highlights the urgent requirement for national and global pathogen early-warning systems.
An early-warning system for Britain would pick up this variant entering the country and allow isolation, to prevent spread. A global system might have identified the so-called African variant some weeks ago and isolated it in its country, while Britain and other countries put up the shutters to prevent ingress.
The technology to make this system work is being developed in Britain and the Prime Minister should not wait until the middle of next year to work out how to prevent pandemics dominating the globe for the foreseeable future.
To use a bomb disposal expression, we need to get to the left of the bang. Hamish de Bretton-gordon Biosecurity Fellow Magdalene College, Cambridge