"Partial COVID-19 Vaccination May Lead to Deadly Variants"... Expert Diagnosis

On the 19th, at Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, a COVID-19 vaccine transport vehicle was loaded onto an Air Force aircraft during the 2nd integrated government-wide simulation exercise for vaccine distribution. Today's exercise involved loading vaccine transport vehicles onto military aircraft to transport vaccines in case civilian air transport to island regions is restricted. / February 19, 2021 Photo by Joint Press Corps

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] A diagnosis has been raised that if COVID-19 vaccines are administered only to some people rather than everyone, there is a possibility that a deadly variant virus may emerge.

According to the US daily Wall Street Journal on the 20th (local time), Emma Hodcroft, an epidemiologist at the University of Bern, said, "If everyone has immunity, there will be almost no circulating virus, and the virus will not be able to adapt."

Conversely, she explained that if no one has immunity, the virus has no need to evolve, so the possibility of variant virus emergence decreases.

Hodcroft pointed out, "The dangerous point is the 'middle ground' where only some people are vaccinated, meaning many viruses are circulating while only some have immunity."

When the entire population has immunity, the virus has no room to adapt, but in a situation where only some have immunity and others do not, many viruses circulate, creating a risk zone for generating powerful variants.

It was also noted as a problem that new variants could appear, reducing the effectiveness of vaccines and treatments, and increasing the possibility of reinfection among recovered patients. Experts pointed out that to minimize these issues, vaccination efforts should be accelerated while also employing containment measures such as social distancing.

Richard Lessell, an infectious disease expert and one of the researchers who first discovered the variant originating from South Africa, said that in such situations, "the risk of more variants emerging increases."

Another problem with partial immunity is that the power of variants tends to become stronger over time. While some variants have little impact, problematic variants have emerged in South Africa, Brazil, and the United Kingdom.

This phenomenon, called "selective pressure," is supported by the fact that suspected reinfection cases have been reported particularly frequently in South Africa, the WSJ pointed out.