The virus that changes shape threatens disease cycles, blockages

The new variants represent two threats. First, to counteract the increased risk of infection, activity restrictions may be tightened, pushing some economies back into recession. The UK, where a fast-spreading variant is now widespread, has re-entered a complete deadlock on 5 January. Its economy, which fell 10 percent last year, is likely to contract now. The International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday that it will increase by 4.5% this year, down from the October forecast of 5.9%.

The second threat is a possible new variant that is resistant to the immunity conferred by existing vaccines and past infections, which could trigger a new cycle of restrictions and require a new round of vaccinations.

If such a variant occurs, manufacturers believe that vaccines can be updated relatively quickly. However, James Stock, an economist at Harvard University who studied the virus and economics, warned that a “scenario of this remains around for a much longer period of time.”

“All economic adjustments were seen as temporary: restaurants with a capacity of 25% and so on,” he said. “If this becomes chronic, there should be truly massive reorganizations” of the US economy.

Singapore Education Minister Lawrence Wong, who is co-chair of his government’s Covid ministerial task force, said on Monday: “It could take four to five years for us to finally see the end of the pandemic and the start of post-Covid normalcy.”

Mutations are intrinsic to viruses – and savings, by the way. Financial crises repeat themselves because financial innovation eventually bypasses the regulations established after the last crisis. Similarly, viruses move all the time, and natural selection dictates that in the end the most capable variants of reproduction predominate.

Viruses, however, move much faster than finances. Nearly 300,000 variants of Covid-19 have been detected in the last year, according to a paper by Eduardo Costas, a professor of genetics at the Complutense University of Madrid, and two colleagues.

To gain a foothold, variants such as the United Kingdom must acquire extremely advantageous mutations – relatively rare in combination. But as more people around the world become infected, the likelihood of new highly infectious mutant strains will increase, Costas said in an email.

“It’s like playing the lottery with a lot more numbers,” he added.

The British version, called B.1.1.7, is spreading 30% to 70% faster and can be 30% to 40% more deadly than previous versions, according to scientists. This involves non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as masks and social distancing, need to be significantly trained to keep deaths unchanged. It also means that more people need to be infected or vaccinated to gain “herd immunity” when the epidemic goes out.

In the United Kingdom, estimates David Mackie of JP Morgan, the new variant has increased the number of reproduction of the virus – how many people infect each infected person, in the absence of immunity or interventions – to 4.9 from 3.3. Masks, hygiene and social distancing have pushed the number of reproduction below one, the threshold at which cases fall. This has come at a high cost: the British economy is almost certainly declining.

Indeed, as the importance of life-saving restrictions may increase, public tolerance of them is declining, as evidenced by the recent riots caused by an extinction in the Netherlands. In the US, some states have refused to adopt restrictions, and most others target only high-risk activities, such as indoor dining.

However, if the cases increased again, the restrictions would intensify – and even if they did not, more people would voluntarily distance themselves socially. Whatever undermines the recovery. Goldman Sachs estimates that a delay in obtaining herd immunity would prevent the US from recovering by two months and reduce growth this year by 2 percentage points.

The widespread administration of existing vaccines should eliminate epidemics related to current variants. But the likelihood of a vaccine-resistant variant increases over time and with cases worldwide.

“This is one of the reasons why it is important to think not only locally, but globally,” said Alessandro Vespignani, a pandemic model scientist at Northeastern University. “We could have a perfect vaccination campaign launched in the USA and Europe. But if we let the virus go crazy and have a lot of cases elsewhere, this could boomerang – there could be a way to get rid of protecting our immune system. ”

This puts additional pressure on the Biden administration and the governments of other rich nations to accelerate vaccination not only at home but also in poor countries, to minimize the number of variants. The IMF assumes that a vaccine will be widely available this summer in the most advanced and in some developing economies, but not until the second half of 2022 in the rest of the world.

Mr Vespignani added: “We need an infrastructure in such a way that everything does not work well, we are much better prepared than in March, April and right now.” This means more widespread genomic surveillance for dangerous variants; the ability to rapidly update and administer vaccines to the entire population; and fast and widely available testing to contain outbreaks.

Write to Greg Ip at [email protected]