Viral load

12 February 2021 By Aimee Donnellan Follow @aimeedonnellan

Like the Greek serpentine monster, Covid-19 is mutating. Though vaccines are effective at defeating the original virus, their ability to protect against new variants is uncertain. Breakingviews explains why the world faces a prolonged fight to get back to normal.

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Australian authorities on Feb. 12 imposed a five-day snap coronavirus lockdown on Melbourne after a fresh Covid-19 cluster linked to a quarantine hotel in the country’s second-most populous city reached 13 cases as of Feb. 11. All of those infections were linked to the highly contagious UK variant of the virus.

South Africa will put on hold AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 shot in its vaccination programme, after data showed it gave minimal protection against mild-to-moderate infection caused by the country’s dominant coronavirus variant, the country’s Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Feb. 7.

Prior to widespread circulation of the more contagious variant, the vaccine was showing efficacy of around 75%, researchers said.

In a later analysis based mostly on infections by the new variant, there was only a 22% lower risk of developing mild-to-moderate Covid-19 versus those given a placebo.

Volunteers and police officers in several parts of England began knocking on people’s doors on Feb. 2 to try to halt the spread of a highly infectious variant that originated in South Africa.

The campaign will involve testing 80,000 people across eight different areas after 11 people in different regions tested positive for the variant without having any links to people who had travelled to South Africa.

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Prior to widespread circulation of the more contagious variant, the vaccine was showing efficacy of around 75%, researchers said.

In a later analysis based mostly on infections by the new variant, there was only a 22% lower risk of developing mild-to-moderate Covid-19 versus those given a placebo.

Volunteers and police officers in several parts of England began knocking on people’s doors on Feb. 2 to try to halt the spread of a highly infectious variant that originated in South Africa.

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