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Coronavirus pandemic

High rates of vaccination against COVID decrease likelihood of new strains, Vector says

The sooner the epidemic ends, then the sooner the coronavirus evolutionary process will end, the lower the possibility of emergence of the so-called vaccine-evading virus variant, Alexander Semenov said

© Sergei Karpukhin/TASS

MOSCOW, July 22. /TASS/. The high rates of vaccination against coronavirus decrease the likelihood of emergence of strains resistant to existing vaccines, head of the branch of the Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing in Yekaterinburg Alexander Semenov told TASS.

"Of course, the statement by the head of the WHO was absolutely correct, the more coronavirus strains, its variants, will appear, the more the likelihood that sooner or later such [a strain] will emerge that can evade the action of the vaccines. This is a normal expectable process which is observed in all other viruses, not only in the coronavirus. So the sooner the population is inoculated, the sooner the epidemic ends, then the sooner the coronavirus evolutionary process will end, the lower the possibility of emergence of the so-called vaccine-evading virus variant or the escape variant of the virus as it is called in scientific literature," he said.

Earlier, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned about the threat of the emergence of a coronavirus strain more dangerous than Delta which may resist the existing vaccines. According to him, inoculation of 70% of the population of each country by the middle of next year will allow to stop the pandemic of the novel coronavirus and relaunch the world economy.

Terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall

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