Reactive public health strategies will not be able to provide meaningful risk mitigation. Study posted March 08, 2023
The study underlines the necessity for a VaccinesPlus strategy involving pro-active public health measures.
Waning immunity and rapid viral evolution both degrade antibody binding titers. But public health authorities worldwide have adopted a strategy of removal of measures for limiting viral spread, resulting in a large burden of recurrent SARS-CoV-2 infections.
“Crucial for managing this burden is the concept of the so-called wall of hybrid immunity, through repeated reinfections and vaccine boosters, to reduce the risk of severe disease and death.” “The recent emergence of variants with strongly immune evasive potential against both the vaccinal and natural immune responses raises the question of whether the wall of population-level immunity can be maintained in the face of large jumps in nAb binding potency.”
“Our findings suggest large jumps in viral evolution may cause failure of population immunity resulting in sudden increases in mortality. As a rise in mortality will only become apparent in the weeks following a wave of disease, reactive public health strategies will not be able to provide meaningful risk mitigation. Learning to live with the virus could thus lead to large death tolls with very little warning.”