Get your jab for new variant, it’s going to be a long fight

It seems, at first glance, that our Covid situation just got a whole lot worse, as scientists here described a new mutation of the coronavirus one which might be the worst yet.

However, there is still a lot of work to be done to understand the nature of the C.1.2 variant to see if it might be more infectious than the current delta variant and, more worryingly, whether it can evade vaccines.

The scientists are also concerned about the fact that the variant mutates much faster than was expected, which is one of the mechanisms it might use to evade vaccines, which were developed for the earlier variants.

However, Wits University professor of vaccinology Dr Shabir Madhi says “vaccines are still likely to have high protection against at severe disease”, even if they are “less effective in preventing infection”.

And that is still the bottom line for those who are hesitant about taking the vaccines and see this new development as vindication of their stance: the jabs are still going to give you a better chance of not being hospitalised or dying than relying on your immune system alone to protect you.

What is clear, though, is: this is going to be a long fight