Displacement virus threatens cycles, locks

The new variant poses two threats. First, to counter the higher risk of infection, the restrictions on activity can be tightened, pushing some economies back into a recession. Britain, where one rapidly spreading variant is now widespread, again entered a complete exclusion on 5 January. Its economy, which shrank by 10% last year, is likely to collapse now. The International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday it would grow by 4.5% this year, compared to the forecast of 5.9% in October.

The second threat is a possible new variant that is resistant to the immunity offered by existing vaccines and infections in the past, which could cause a new cycle of restrictions and require a new round of vaccinations.

If such a variant emerges, manufacturers think that vaccines can be updated relatively quickly. Nevertheless, James Stock, an economist at Harvard University who studied the virus and the economy, warned of a ‘scenario that this case would remain for a much longer period of time.’

“All the economic adjustments are considered temporary: restaurants with a capacity of 25% and so on,” he said. “If it were to become chronic, there would have to be a huge reorganization of the US economy.

Singapore Education Minister Lawrence Wong, who is chairing Covid’s ministerial ministerial task force, said on Monday: “It could take four to five years before we finally see the end of the pandemic and the beginning of a post-Covid-normal. “

Mutations are inherent in viruses – and economies, for that matter. Financial crises recur as financial innovation eventually circumvents the regulations introduced after the last crisis. Similarly, viruses mutate all the time, and natural selection determines that the variants can eventually reproduce best.

However, viruses mutate much faster than finances. According to an article by Eduardo Costas, a professor of genetics at the Complutense University of Madrid, and two colleagues, nearly 300,000 variants of Covid-19 have been detected in the past year.

In order to gain a foothold, variants such as the United Kingdom must produce extremely beneficial mutations – relatively rare in combination. But as more people in the world become infected, the likelihood of new highly contagious mutant strains appearing, Costas said in an email.

“It’s like playing the lottery with a lot more numbers,” he adds.

The British variant, called B.1.1.7, spreads 30% to 70% faster and can, according to scientists, be 30% to 40% more lethal than earlier variants. This implies that non-pharmaceutical interventions such as masks and social distance should be essential to keep deaths unchanged. It also means that more people need to be infected or vaccinated to achieve ‘herd immunity’ when the epidemic dies out.

In Britain, David Mackie of JP Morgan estimates that the new variant has increased the reproduction number of the virus – how many people will infect each infected person, in the absence of immunity or interventions – to 4.9 from 3.3. Masks, hygiene and social distance pushed the reproduction number under one, the threshold at which cases fall. It has cost a lot: the British economy is almost certainly shrinking.

As the importance of restricting activities to save lives may increase, the public’s tolerance of it is declining, as recent riots over a curfew in the Netherlands show. In the US, some states have refused to impose restrictions, and most others focus only on high-risk activities such as indoor dining.

Yet, if the cases increase again, the restrictions are likely to intensify – and even if they did not, more people would voluntarily distance themselves socially. Both will undermine the recovery. Goldman Sachs estimates that a delay in achieving herd immunity will delay the recovery of the US by two months and reduce growth this year by 2 percentage points.

Widespread administration of existing vaccines should eliminate epidemics related to current variants. But the likelihood of a vaccine-resistant variant increases over time and worldwide.

“This is one of the reasons why it is important to think not just locally but globally,” said Alessandro Vespignani, a Northeastern University scientist who is forming a pandemic. ‘We can have a perfectly vaccinated campaign in the US and Europe. But if we want to let go of the virus and have many other cases elsewhere, it can have boomerang – there may be a variant that can protect our immune system. “

This puts extra pressure on the Biden government and governments of other affluent countries to speed up vaccination not only at home but also in poor countries, to limit the number of variants. The IMF assumes that a vaccine will be available in the most advanced and some developing economies by this summer, but only in the second half of 2022 in the rest of the world.

Mr. Vespignani added: “We need an infrastructure so that everything that goes wrong prepares us better than in March, April and even now.” This means that widespread genomic surveillance for dangerous variants occurs; the ability to rapidly update and administer vaccines to the entire population; and widely available cheap and quick testing to contain outbreaks.

Write to Greg Ip by [email protected]