When Will The Pandemic Be Over?

The pandemic took by surprise and upended the entire world, and put an exceptional burden on researchers

Corina Cristea, 15.01.2021, 13:45

The pandemic took by surprise and upended the entire world, and put an exceptional burden on researchers — finding a vaccine against the novel coronavirus in record time. In an unprecedented act of mobilization, in less than a year from the first confirmed case, several vaccines were created. The first to be approved and distributed for immunization were the ones made by the American company Pfizer and German company BioNTech. Then came the Moderna vaccine, with more on the way. From now on, ambitious plans for immunization can only be put in jeopardy by mistrust among the population, or disruptions in the chain of distribution, according to experts. With the advent of vaccines, the question that arises is when the pandemic will be over.

As a guest on Radio Romania, Dr. Emilian Popovici, vice-president of the Romanian Epidemiological Society, spoke about the percentage of the population that needs to be vaccinated to attain herd immunity:

“The recommendation right now for all countries is to immunize at least 60% of the population within a year at the most, and at the same time for measures to be taken to keep the rate of infection at the minimum, in order to reduce the possibility of mutation of the virus. The more people are infected with the virus, the higher the opportunity for the virus to generate mutations, as happened with the new strain that emerged in the UK. So, this is the idea: 60% of the population immunized within a year, with keeping the infection in check. Over 60%, over 70%, and we can talk about functional herd immunity.”

According to the prestigious Science magazine, the accelerated development of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, in full pandemic, is the highest scientific achievement of the year 2020. Dr. Marius Geanta, president of the Center for Innovation in Medicine, talks about the factors that facilitated the creation of vaccines much faster than usual:

“First of all, we have an innovation in terms of the genomic sequencing technologies available. The maturity of these technologies, as well as data analysis, allowed for a very quick identification of the virus, only 30 days from the first reported case. This means six times faster than we were used to in identification of a virus. So, in other words, with the publication of the viral genome on January 10, 2020, we — and I mean by this the scientific community — were able to start working on the design of a vaccine, and then the design of clinical studies, therefore in January instead of June or July. So there, a gain of half a year, derived from technologies that allowed us to find out very fast what we were dealing with, and who we are fighting. The second tier of innovation, and we are talking about a technology that has reached maybe not maturity, but has at least a good start, is the technology of messenger RNA, which is in fact that basis of the first vaccines approved by the EU, the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines. This technology started being developed 30 to 40 years ago, there were over 1,000 registered clinical studies using this technology in the US, but in the context of this public health crisis, the interest was so much higher. And now we come to the third tier of innovation, that at the level of systems and institutions. Traditionally, we were used to having 44,000 people enrolled, the number included in the Pfizer- BioNTech third testing stage, over a longer period of time, spacing out the expenses, reducing financial risks. Now, the enrollment of these people was done in only a few months, the number is significant, the innovation consisted of taking on the risk, and the way in which the regulatory authorities worked with private companies. The fourth tier was at the level of the regulatory authorities, and here I think we already have best practices that have to remain in place, namely a reduction in bureaucratic aspects that were delaying access.”

In other words, getting vaccines in record time does not mean that they are unsafe. At the same time, it is important for the vaccination to occur in the shortest time possible, in parallel with measures to contain the spread of the virus. This is the path taken by Israel, the most advanced country in terms of immunization, which vaccinates each day as much as 1% of the population. Here is Radio Romania Israel correspondent, Dragos Ciociralan:

“The population was receptive, and understood the necessity. Stopping the coronavirus pandemic will mean the reopening of the economy before the Easter holidays. It is estimated that by mid-March, almost the entire population will have been vaccinated. From another perspective, this is a national security matter. Public health is a priority in the national strategy. A few days ago, the armed forces started vaccination. We dont have the figures, but the operative units have to be functional, and are functional, considering the front lines in the north, south, east, and even the Mediterranean. There is no overcrowding. If you step into a vaccination center, everything runs with precision, starting from checking personal data, to being guided to the line for vaccination, where the person administering the vaccine first fills in a questionnaire online.”

In the EU, the beginning of the vaccination campaign started at a community level on 27 December, and the vaccines were distributed based on the size of the population of each country.