It’s got the “19” at the end of it not because there have been 18 other Covids as Ted Nugent may have thought, which I covered previously for Forbes.
The Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, Lambda, and other variants of concern and interest listed on the World Health Organization website have all resulted from progressive mutations in the genetic material of the original SARS-CoV-2.
Well, it seems like this “Covid-22” term emerged from what Sai Reddy, PhD, an Associate Professor of Systems and Synthetic Immunology at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, may have said.
OK, first of all, the Delta variant was initially detected in October of 2020 in India, not in 2021.
That would be like preparing a baby shower gift for your best friend from college that says, “congratulations on you impending baby rhinoceros.” That’s assuming, of course, that your best friend from college isn’t a rhinoceros and you meant something else when you said that he or she was horny.
When it comes to variants, the biggest concerns right now are the Delta and Delta plus variants that are more contagious than the original version of the virus.
Then there’s the Lambda variant, which is technically a “variant of interest” not a “variant of concern” based on the current WHO classification.
However, there are concerns that these vaccines may be not quite as effective against the Delta or Lambda variants compared to their effectiveness against the original version or the alpha variant.
Flu activity dropped again in the Summer of 1919 before picking back up again that subsequent Fall and Winter before the pandemic finally ended after this third wave in 1920.
As long as the structures of the spike proteins on the virus don’t change too much, protection from the vaccines have decent chances of keeping the pandemic from dragging on past 2022, at least in the U.S.
You may say, “hey, perpetually-surprised-looking-person, have you seen my friend?” Similarly, the virus has to be so different that your immune system is not able to either adequately detect the virus when it enters your body or generate an effective response to the virus.
If public health surveillance systems are able to follow how different versions of the SARS-CoV-2 are evolving, scientists may be able to anticipate when versions of the virus have changed enough to merit the production of new vaccines that better match new variants.
Both the mRNA technology used by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna and the adenovirus platforms used by Astra-Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson should make it relatively straightforward to swap in different updated versions of the spike protein.
Whereas, on the other hand, some are a bit too Doomsday about the pandemic believing that it may last forever and worrying that the world will never be able to recover.
However, maintain Covid-19 precautions such as social distancing and face mask use when you are interacting with others in public until vaccination rates reach high enough levels to achieve herd immunity thresholds and interrupt the transmission of the virus.
Also, try to stick to the terms established by the World Health Organizations And they’ve been using a naming convention to help everyone understand how different versions of the virus have been emerging.
Rather than speculating on what may happen in the future, it’s better to focus on taking care of the variants that are concerns today by increasing vaccination rates and maintaining other Covid-19 precautions at the same time.
I am a writer, journalist, professor, systems modeler, computational and digital health expert, avocado-eater, and entrepreneur, not always in that order.